Four Jewels Vegetable Stir-Fry
炒四宝
English: Four Jewels Vegetable Stir-Fry
Chinese: 炒四宝
Pinyin： chao si bao
Literal: Stir-Fry Four Treasures/Jewels
A good Four Jewels Vegetable Stir-Fry is an elegant thing - a quiet but confident dish that sits at the heart of Shandong cooking (Lu Cai 鲁菜), one of China’s great cuisines with a deep influence on the food of Beijing and the North. You don’t often find true Lu Cai in the home kitchen; it’s a cuisine built on precision, on dishes that need expert knife skills and braises that take days. But the beauty of Four Jewels Vegetables lies in its simplicity.
It’s a celebration of four exceptional, seasonal ingredients treated with the lightest touch. The ‘jewels’ change with the time of year: asparagus, snow peas, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, lily bulbs, ginkgo nuts, even fresh walnuts when the season allows. Yes, this is a stir-fry, but there’s no overpowering sauce - just a quick flash of heat from a searing wok, finished with a sauce that adds a slippery mouthfeel rather than flavour.
This recipe began with a gift — a box of fresh walnuts from a friend. Their season is fleeting, their flavour soft and creamy and deserve to be treated with respect. They ask for gentleness so I’ve paired them with the clean snap of asparagus and a few meaty shiitake mushrooms.
Across Northern China, you’ll find two distinct schools of Four Jewels: the home-style version, with a dark, soy-based sauce, and the restaurant version, pale and glossy (清炒 or 勾芡炒), relying on a good stock rather than soy for depth. Both are beautiful in their own way.
And if you happen to hear of another Chao Sibao — a Northeastern dish of four ‘offal treasures’ — know that it’s a different creature entirely: rustic, hearty, and worlds away from the quiet refinement of these Four Jewels Vegetables.
Serves 2-3
Ingredients
½ cup (about 50g) of fresh walnuts - shelled and peeled
6-8 spears of asparagus
A handful of snow peas
4-5 fresh shiitake mushrooms
2 cloves of garlic - thinly slices
3 slices of garlic - peeled and julienned
For the sauce:
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 teaspoon oyster sauce
1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine
½ teaspoon sugar
Pinch of salt
Pinch of white pepper
3 tablespoons of vegetable stock or water
½ teaspoon cornstarch
Method
Note:
Feel free to change the vegetables based on availability. The key is to have a contrast of textures.
For the clear sauce version, just omit the soy-sauce, the taste will be cleaner.
Prepare the vegetables. Make sure the walnuts are shelled and peeled. Trim the tough ends from the asparagus, then cut the spears on a sharp diagonal into 2-inch (5 cm) pieces. Remove the strings from the snow peas. Slice the shiitake mushrooms, discarding the stems.
Prepare the aromatics. Slice the garlic and julienne the ginger; set aside.
If your asparagus is thick, blanch it in boiling water for 30 seconds, then drain and plunge into ice water to preserve its colour and crispness.
Make the sauce. In a small bowl, combine the light soy sauce, oyster sauce, Shaoxing wine, sugar, salt, white pepper, and 2 tablespoons of the stock or water. In a separate bowl, mix the cornstarch with the remaining 1 tablespoon of stock or water to make a slurry.
Heat your wok over high heat until nearly smoking. Add 2 tablespoons of oil and swirl to coat. Add the garlic and ginger; stir-fry for 10–15 seconds until fragrant.
Add the shiitake mushrooms and stir-fry for 1 minute. Then add the asparagus and snow peas; fry for another minute. Finally, add the walnuts and stir-fry for a further 1 minute, tossing everything so the vegetables are evenly coated in oil.
Pour in the sauce mixture, followed by the cornstarch slurry. Everything should sizzle and bubble immediately. Toss or stir to coat the vegetables as the sauce thickens — this should take 20–30 seconds.
Remove from the heat and serve immediately while the vegetables are bright and glossy.
