Stir-fry 7 Types Vegetables

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This stir-fry 7 types vegetables (七样菜) is a Chinese New Year dish of Teochew origin, typically served on the 7th day of celebrations known as Human Day (人日), aka everyone’s birthday. I actually cooked this yesterday, on the 13th day of CNY, as I am clearing the leftover CNY veggies in my fridge. Being an assortment of stir-fry greens, I firmly believe that this dish can be cooked & enjoyed all year round … I mean, who can say no to eating lots of healthy vegetables?

See Also:

• Buddha’s Delight Recipe
• Easy Meatless Recipes
• Chinese New Year Recipes

Leftover veggies? Check out this related leftover recipe:

• Stir-fry Pork & Veggies in XO Sauce

Photos of the ingredients + how to cut them:

There are no rules about what makes up the seven vegetables, but generally they are leafy greens, leeks and scallions. During CNY, try to at least include Chinese leeks 蒜 which symbolize wealth. Avoid negative symbolism such as bitter gourd or salted vegetables.

The seven vegetables (pictured above) I used in this recipe are:

1. two stalks Chinese leeks 蒜
2. two bunches Shanghai bok choy 上海青
3. few stalks choy sum (cai xin) shoots 菜心苗
   
4. one big stalk Chinese spinach (puay leng) 菠菜
5. some Chinese (coral) lettuce leaves 生菜
6. small head napa cabbage 大白菜
7. two stalks “negi” scallion 葱 (only the bottom white part)
   

Outside of the above seven vegetables, I added baby corn, carrot & red chilli for a splash of colour.

Other suitable vegetables:

• Chinese mustard, broccoli, celery, coriander, spring onion, lily bulb & yellow chives
• Any variety of Chinese cabbage, kale, chives, lettuce & spinach
• Any Chinese greens such as baby bok choy (小白菜), choy sum (菜心), nai bai (奶白) & kailan (芥蓝)
• and the list goes on…

This recipe is great for clearing the fridge!

Items 1 & 5-7 above are leftovers from CNY so this dish is essentially a clearing-the-fridge exercise for me. My neighborhood wet market vegetable stall sells leafy vegetables the “ala carte method” by weight, so I bought small handfuls of the other three veggies (item 2-4) to make this dish. In this way, I don’t need to buy a packet of each vegetable, which in turn would create more leftovers from making a leftover dish :p

How to cut and cook the vegetables?

I sort the cut vegetables to three plates, in the order of putting them into the wok based on the timing needed to cook them.