Stir-Fried King Oyster Mushrooms with Cilantro — 香菜炒杏鮑菇

King oyster mushrooms torn by hand, seared until golden, then tossed with a whole fistful of cilantro — the fastest way to make a mushroom taste like the main event. 手撕杏鮑菇煎到金黃，最後大火拌入一大把香菜，鹹香入味、香氣撲鼻，超級下飯。

📹 Watch the Recipe

Recipe by 芭樂媽的家 Qistin Wong TV

🥘 Why This Recipe Works

香菜炒杏鮑菇 (xiāngcài chǎo xìngbàogū) is a Taiwanese home-kitchen stir-fry built on one idea: treat the mushroom like meat. King oyster mushrooms (杏鮑菇) have a dense, fibrous stem, and when you tear one apart lengthwise it shreds into strips that look and chew like hand-torn chicken. Tearing — not slicing — is the whole trick: the ragged, irregular surface grabs sauce instead of letting it slide off, so every strip arrives at the table seasoned rather than glazed on one side.

Two moves carry the flavor. First, the sear. Mushrooms are mostly water, and if you salt them early or crowd the wok they steam and turn rubbery. Here the torn strips go into a single layer over medium heat for 3–4 minutes, untouched long enough to brown, then tossed until the edges are evenly golden — that browning is where the 鍋氣 (wok aroma) comes from. Second, the cilantro goes in dead last, on high heat, for under a minute. Its fragrant oils are volatile; add it early and you cook them off. Qistin keeps the stems and chops everything a little coarse so it clings to the mushroom strips instead of vanishing into the sauce.

Carrot and wood ear are the supporting cast — carrot for sweetness and color, wood ear for the bouncy, gelatinous crunch that Taiwanese cooks call QQ. The dish is engineered to deliver three textures in one bite: tender mushroom, soft-sweet carrot, snappy fungus. And because the savoriness comes from mushroom umami, soy sauce, and allium-free vegetarian oyster sauce rather than garlic or scallion, it stays 五辛-free and fits strict Buddhist vegetarian cooking. This version: 8 ingredients, one wok, about 18 minutes.

🛒 Ingredients

👨‍🍳 Instructions

Step 1: Tear the mushrooms, don’t slice them

• Pull each king oyster mushroom apart lengthwise with your fingers into thin strips
• Go for ragged, irregular edges — they hold sauce far better than a clean knife cut
• Cut the strips into shorter segments so they’re easy to pick up with rice
• You should end up with roughly 300 g of raw torn mushrooms

Step 2: Prep the cilantro and vegetables

• Wash the cilantro and cut it into short sections, stems and all — the stems carry most of the aroma
• Keep it slightly coarse so it clings to the mushroom strips rather than disappearing
• Peel 1/4 carrot and julienne it into thin matchsticks
• Rehydrate one piece of wood ear, halve it, then shred it finely so the strands aren’t too long

Step 3: Sear the mushrooms until golden

• Heat 1–2 tbsp oil in a wok over medium heat
• Add the torn mushroom strips in a single layer and leave them to sear before tossing
• Toss and turn for 3–4 minutes until the surfaces are evenly golden — this is the flavour base
• Do not add salt or sauce yet; salt early draws out water and steams the mushrooms instead of browning them

Step 4: Add the vegetables and seasonings

• Add the julienned carrot and wood ear shreds and stir to combine
• Pour in 1 tsp light soy sauce and 1 tsp vegetarian oyster sauce
• Keep tossing for a minute or two until the carrot starts to soften and everything is coated

Step 5: Braise briefly so the carrot cooks through

• Add 30 cc water down the side of the wok
• Simmer for about 2 minutes — the carrot should go noticeably tender
• The liquid should reduce to a light glaze that clings to the mushrooms

Step 6: Cilantro last, high heat, then off

• Add all 3 sprigs of cilantro at once — it looks like too much, but it collapses fast
• Toss on high heat for 30–60 seconds, just until it wilts and the aroma comes up
• Kill the heat, plate immediately, and serve hot with steamed rice

💡 Tips & Substitutions

📊 Nutrition

Per serving (serves 2 as a side dish)

~150 cal · Protein: 5 g · Carbs: 13 g · Fat: 8 g · Fiber: 4 g · Sodium ~620 mg

Dou Dou (豆豆)

Stir-Fried King Oyster Mushrooms with Cilantro — 香菜炒杏鮑菇

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 8 minutes mins

Total Time 18 minutes mins

Servings: 2 servings

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Taiwanese

Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients

  

• ~300 g (3–4 large) King oyster mushrooms (杏鮑菇) Torn by hand into thin strips, then cut into short segments
• 3 sprigs (~40 g) Cilantro (香菜 / 芫荽) Stems included; cut into short sections
• 1/4 carrot Carrot (紅蘿蔔) Peeled and julienned
• 1 piece Dried wood ear (黑木耳) Rehydrated in cool water, halved, shredded
• 1–2 tbsp Cooking oil (食用油)
• 1 tsp Light soy sauce (醬油)
• 1 tsp Vegetarian oyster sauce (素蠔油) Mushroom-based, allium-free
• 30 cc Water (水)

Method

 

1. Pull each king oyster mushroom apart lengthwise into thin strips with your fingers, leaving ragged edges, then cut into short segments. You want roughly 300 g of raw torn mushrooms.
2. Cut the washed cilantro into short coarse sections, stems included. Peel 1/4 carrot and julienne it. Rehydrate one piece of wood ear, halve it, then shred finely.
3. Heat 1–2 tbsp oil in a wok over medium heat. Add the torn mushrooms in a single layer and let them sear before tossing; cook 3–4 minutes until evenly golden. Do not season yet.
4. Add the carrot and wood ear, pour in 1 tsp soy sauce and 1 tsp vegetarian oyster sauce, and toss for a minute or two until the carrot starts to soften.
5. Add 30 cc water down the side of the wok and simmer about 2 minutes until the carrot is tender and the sauce reduces to a light glaze.
6. Add all 3 sprigs of cilantro and toss on high heat for 30–60 seconds until just wilted and fragrant. Kill the heat, plate, and serve hot with rice.

Notes

Tear the mushrooms by hand, never slice them — the ragged surface holds sauce. Sear in a single layer over medium heat until golden before adding any seasoning. Add the cilantro at the very end on high heat so its aroma survives.

🌱 Why This Dish

香菜炒杏鮑菇 belongs to the Taiwanese 家常素 tradition — everyday meatless home cooking that never set out to imitate meat, only to taste good with rice. The dish name is a small lesson in how Chinese food naming works: 杏鮑菇 literally reads “apricot-abalone mushroom,” borrowing 鮑 from abalone for its springy, almost seafood-like chew and 杏 for the faint nutty note of the raw flesh. Tear it and sear it properly and the resemblance stops being a marketing trick and starts being dinner.

Cilantro has an older name that says a lot about its history. Most people today say 香菜, “fragrant vegetable,” but older cooks and Cantonese kitchens still call it 芫荽 (yuánsuī) — and an even earlier name, 胡荽, marks it as “foreign coriander,” an herb that arrived in China from Central Asia along the Silk Road over two thousand years ago. It is one of the very few ingredients in Chinese cooking that people either love or describe as soapy, which is why this dish is genuinely polarizing and genuinely loved by those who love it — Qistin notes in the video that it’s her daughter’s favourite plate, and that a simple stir-fry of cilantro with soy sauce over rice is a meal she’ll eat without complaint.

The Buddhist angle here is practical rather than symbolic. Because the savoriness is built from seared mushroom, soy sauce, and 素蠔油 — vegetarian oyster sauce made from mushroom extract — the dish needs no garlic, onion, scallion, chive, or leek. That makes it 五辛-free, which matters for strict 全素/淨素 cooking in temples and in the homes of lay practitioners who keep the allium precept. Wood ear carries its own cultural weight too: traditionally regarded in Chinese medicine as a “blood-circulation cleaner” (血管清道夫) and prized for its QQ crunch, it is the reason this plate reads as varied rather than monotonous.

There’s an everyday economics to it as well. In Taiwan, cilantro becomes brutally expensive in the summer heat — the creator mentions a single bunch hitting NT$70 in June and July, months when she simply stopped buying it, then finding the same bunch back at NT$20 by October, fresh and abundant. This is a dish that tracks the market: in a cheap-cilantro month, a few dollars of mushrooms and one herb turn into something that eats like a restaurant plate.

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