The joy of stuffed vegetables, in two recipes from grandma

Stuffed vegetables were a speciality of my grandmother, who cooked these dishes regularly when making her fantastic and extravagant twice-weekly family meals. This basic pork stuffing works brilliantly with dried mush­rooms and bitter melon, as well as medium-hot fresh chillies and eggplant.

Stuffed Chinese mushrooms

A word of advice: when making this dish, soak the mush­rooms the day before. Good dried mushrooms have large, thick caps that need time to hydrate fully, or else you will have a hard, dry part in the centre. It can be difficult to judge the number of mushrooms you need for this amount of stuffing. If you have extra soaked mushrooms, thinly slice them and add them to the dish as the ingredients are simmering. If you have extra stuffing, shape it into meatballs and brown them briefly in the hot fat, before cooking with the other ingredients.

20-25 large Chinese mushrooms
500 grams slightly fatty minced pork
15ml soy sauce
10ml rice wine
5ml sesame oil
1 tsp granulated sugar
½ tsp fine sea salt
1/8 tsp finely ground white pepper
4 tsp cornstarch, divided
30 grams spring onions
10 grams fresh coriander, plus extra for the garnish
50ml oyster sauce
Cooking oil, as needed
Half a head of iceberg lettuce

Use kitchen scissors to snip off the mushroom stems as close to the cap as possible (this helps the caps hydrate more evenly). Rinse the mushrooms briefly in a colander, then put them in a large bowl and add enough tepid water so that they can bob around freely. Leave them to soak for about eight hours or until fully hydrated, turning them over once or twice to soak evenly. Squeeze the mushroom caps and rinse in the soaking liquid so that any grit in the gills is expelled.