Ingredients :

• Chinese cabbage (napa cabbage / hakusai) — Also called hakusai in Japanese. Its leaves are more tender and milder than green cabbage — they cook quickly and absorb flavors well. Choose one that’s dense, with tight leaves and no brown spots on the edges. Half a cabbage is plenty for four people.
• Shiitake mushrooms — They bring the umami to the dish. Fresh ones have a meaty texture that holds up well in cooking. Dried and rehydrated, they’re even more concentrated in flavor — it’s up to you what you have on hand. Avoid cutting them too thin; they need to keep some body in the wok.
• Turkey bacon — It replaces pork bacon in this recipe. When cooked, it still renders enough fat to perfume the cabbage, with that slightly smoky quality that does all the work. If you can’t find it, a few drops of toasted sesame oil at the very end give a similar effect.
• Soy sauce — Added only at the end of cooking. If you put it in too early, it burns and becomes bitter. One tablespoon, no more — the cabbage already has salt, and so does the bacon.