Start with the best fresh Chinese vegetables. Yu Choy has become one of my favorite Chinese evergreen vegetables. This is another vegetable where I am at a loss how to pronounce in Cantonese so best to use the Mandarin name and pronunciation. Just get your yam or sweet potato leaves at a reputable Asian grocery store, and you’ll be just fine. In Cantonese dialect, my parents always used to refer to napa cabbage as “wong nga bok” . (Makes us miss Beijing wet markets, where we could get plentiful seasonal vegetables for a fraction of what they cost in the US!). Once you have tried it, especially in wontons or dumplings and potstickers, you will know why it’s worth the trouble! https://www.recipetips.com/glossary-term/t--36228/choy-sum.asp You may see it referred to as “green bok choy” or “Shanghai baby bok choy.” Be sure to try our super-simple Garlic Baby Bok choy recipe as a healthy side dish! Mù’ěr cài is translated directly as “wood ear vegetable” and is similar in consistency and texture to cooked okra. Implemented by WPopt. Nowadays, shepherd’s purse is cultivated and it seems that everyone in Shanghai over 50 years old says the cultivated varieties don’t come close to the strong aromatic flavors of the wild varieties they used to eat. “Even though it may seem more awkward or unwieldy to wash the greens whole, there is less exposure of cut surfaces of the veggies to dirt and pesticide/herbicide residue”. chinese side dish, choy sum, choy sum recipe, how to cook choy sum, vegetable side dish. Then, add 4 cloves of garlic. choy sum recipe pages. Check out these Amazon links for seeds to grow your own “white bok choy” and “green bok choy” in in your garden this summer! You can see how we prepared and used this dwarf bok choy in our quick and easy beef vegetable stir fry. We usually fill a large stainless steel bowl with cold water, dump in the cut vegetables, give them a good swish in the water to loosen any dirt. Sometimes called Chinese spinach, pronounced in Cantonese as hin choy and in Mandarin as xian cai (苋菜), this leafy green vegetable is best stir-fried simply with garlic and salt, as it’s similar in flavor to spinach. She called it “horse poop vegetables” or in the Hakka dialect, “ma see hen tsoy” because in China, these veggies thrived growing in horse poop! But Shanghai or not, if you have access to this tasty green veggie, then you must try it! This place got to be quite well-known amongst the four (or was it five?) Check out our Basic Stir-Fried Bok Choy Recipe that uses the large white bok choy variety pictured on the left below. Life is just too short to be eating old napa cabbage that will ruin your lo mein, so be prompt with these when you bring them home from the supermarket! Heat oil in a small skillet over medium heat. 8 ounces canned pineapple, sliced. Today, you can now enjoy these great recipes, such as Garlic Chicken and Choi Sum, online. Saute garlic until fragrant. Sigeumchi namul (Spinach side dish) Posted in Korean food photos on Friday, September 14th, 2012 at 12:01 pm, and with no comments. The best way my family likes to eat fresh choy sum is with homemade garlic sauce. Click here to get the mouth-watering recipes! Make sure that you are eating sweet potato leaves and NOT potato leaves in the nightshade family that contain solanine, which is toxic to humans. The best part of the Tatsoi are the leaves which have a tender sweet flavor. Edible clover or cǎo tóu (草头) has a sweet and light grassy flavor, and cooks very quickly. Choy sum (also spelled choi sum or "cai xin" using Pinyin) is a leafy vegetable commonly used in Chinese cuisine.It is a member of the genus Brassica of the mustard family, Brassicaceae (Brassica rapa var. When cooking these Chinese vegetables, they are cut into 3-4 inch lengths and cooked with garlic and fermented bean curd or belacan shrimp paste. The catch is that I have only seen them sold in Shanghai vegetable markets and only in spring which is why we would classify this as a Chinese vegetable! In China, these beautiful Shanghai baby bok choy vegetables are arranged neatly in the grocery stores and wet markets. We’ve rarely found this here in the US, but there are a handful of Amazon sellers offering live plants and seeds, which you can find via the links below. Don’t confuse this vegetable with amaranth or water spinach, which are quite different! It also goes by the name of ong choy in Cantonese or kōng xīn cài (空心菜) in Mandarin, which translates to “hollow heart vegetable”. After the final washing, let the vegetables drain thoroughly since overly soaked veggies make for subpar stir-fries. These choy sum vegetables cook up nicely. This list is definitely not comprehensive, but this is a great go-to reference for some of the more popular Chinese leafy greens out there. From this wrinkled look, one could speculate that they are a cross between your standard cabbage and a napa cabbage. ½ cup water chestnuts drained. Try our recipe for this classic Shanghai dish, Ma Lan Tou Spiced Tofu. I have been told they are known as “soup greens.” Can you confirm that the leaves of this plant are eaten and, if so, tell me a transcribed English name for them as a soup green and where to find more information about them? Flavor agents include soy or oyster sauce, ginger, and garlic. Drizzle over the choy sum. Chinese cooks use this celery mostly for stir-fries, and it does produce a great flavor. Below, you can see the difference in varieties between the white bok choy versus the green bok choy. Next, we transfer the veggies to a large colander, refresh the water, and repeat the process another two times. Chinese mustard greens are also used to make picked vegetables, which we DO eat fairly often. But when we can’t get it in the wilds of good old North America, we settle for a few bunches at $1.29 apiece at our supermarket. Thank you for this list! Pea shoots, wān dòu miáo (豌豆苗) or simply dòu miáo (similar pronunciation in Cantonese) is a tasty vegetable that is readily available these days in many restaurants and Chinese markets. We don’t use it much because it is kind of bitter (well, very bitter)–so much so that it’s usually cooked with lots of ginger and some sugar to take the edge off. Three soaks in cool water should do it. You can check out our recipe for Stir-Fried Pink Amaranth Greens. Heat oil in a wok on a high heat. In general, the white bok choy comes in larger plants and in general, the green bok choy are usually sold when they are younger and more tender. Our theory on this is that during the spring and summer, farmers are growing beans and peas for the beans and peas! Just do you part to eat them and we won’t have a problem! Add the stem part of choy sum first into the boiling water, wait for 30 seconds, then add the rest of … Bill probably has the most experience with this; when growing up in upstate New York, he and his family used to drive up to a little known spot deep in the Catskills to pick big bunches of watercress that grew in the spring-fed streams. … The smaller of the two is quite common today and our preferred. They are also rich in vitamin A and C and supposedly enhance immune function, boost metabolism, lower blood sugar, improve eyesight, and act as an anti-inflammatory. On the bright side, most, if not all bitter vegetables, including these mustard green Chinese vegetables are very healthy! Wo shun is the large edible stem portion of the plant when it matures and is usually sliced like a bamboo shoot and used in authentic pork with garlic sauce. I’m always confused and at a loss when I’m at the market and this is helping me distinguish between the different greens! Other recipes we have that use pickled or preserved mustard greens include Mei Cai Kou Rou (Steamed Pork Belly w/ Preserved Mustard Greens) and Noodle Soup with Pork and Pickled Greens. We’ve done a little reorganizing to give Chinese vegetables its own page, so you can quickly access and identify your favorites! So there’s no reason to harvest the leaves; during this time pea leaves may sell for as high as $6.49 a pound. Yu choy is related to bok choy (leaves used) and broccoli (flower buds used). :) We have a very early post on preparing Stir-Fried Water spinach, but if you prefer a fancier dish from Hong Kong, then try our Stir fried Ong Choy with XO Sauce! I do not know the variety or family of vegetable it belongs to but it is a clean tasting leafy green vegetable a delicious stir fried in garlic, salt and oil. Ma lan tou (马兰头), also known as kalimeris indica, Indian aster or Indian kalimeris, is a flowering perennial and one of the many favorite vegetables of the Shanghainese. Make sure there’s no sand or dirt between the layers of each bunch. We have the Shanghai style Stir Fried Cao Tou recipe here, which is really easy to prepare! in a preheated wok or deep pan, heat oil and stir fry garlic until fragrant. It sounds like a lot of work, but it’s definitely a worthwhile effort. Another fun fact is that a variety of yu choy or rapeseed is grown primarily to produce canola oil, one of our go-tos when cooking. Be sure to use the veggies within an hour or two of washing for best results. Tastyyy…All jokes aside though, you can find these in Chinese grocery stores and, we have found, in Indian grocery stores! When buying these, look for bunches that don’t have any budding flowers, which is an indication that they’re too mature and may be tough. These come in two sizes, regular (the aforementioned “medium”) and the small size. 菊花菜), a very much appropriate name given that they do look a bit like a Chrysanthemum flower. Looks are deceiving though because the stems of the Taiwanese spinach are quite tender and packed with flavor and nutrients! Whatever the origin, we do know that the flavor of savoy cabbage is less harsh than your standard cabbage yet has much less water content than napa cabbage so it’s great for stir fries and egg rolls. Surprisingly, even the hollow stems are quite tender as long as the lower 1-2 inches of the stalks are trimmed away. tagged: choy sum image, choy sum recipe, 시금치나물 이미지, korean food, Korean food images, Korean food photos, Korean kitchen, Korean recipes, maangchi recipe, side dish, sigeumchinamul image, spinach side dish, vegetarian dish blanch the choy sum in a llarge pan of boiling water for 30 seconds, drain ans set aside. You’re welcome Eric and glad to hear you’re finding our ingredients glossary useful! We had these vegetables for the first time at a restaurant in Shanghai. Latin name: Brassica oleracaea, Alboglabra Group. without any tiny brown or black spots, which means they’re not fresh). Savoy cabbage is similar to everyday white cabbage found in most supermarkets but has subtle differences. Due to its wrinkled patterned in their leaves, Savoy cabbage is also known wrinkled cabbage. Chinese Herb (Ma Lan Tou, 马兰头)，Also Called Indian Kalimeris, 20 Live Plants. Try this variety of cabbage for your stir fry dishes, and trust me, you’ll never look back! Bring to the boil and allow to bubble for 20 seconds … Chinese Water spinach is a long, leafy green vegetable with hollow stems that is grown in water or damp soil. 2 spring onions (green), finely sliced. Or maybe drop it in a Sai Yeung Choy Tong soup to warm you up in the cold weather! Enjoy this vegetable is a quick and easy stir fry using our recipe for Healthy Stir Fried Watercress with Garlic recipe. 5. Arrange it on the cutting board and cut them in half lengthwise. Add the choy sum, stir, and … I have been told that the small stems with narrow leaves growing in the gardens of Chinese-Americans in San Francisco are Lycium bsrbarum or Lycium chinense\. Add the choy sum and cook for 3-4 minutes. Napa cabbage is large, pale green, and very mild in flavor. Here’s a picture and link to reference fresh Shepard’s purse! In Mandarin, it’s called da bai cai (大白菜) which translates into “big bok choy.” Bok choy, cabbage, who the heck knows when translating from Chinese to English and transporting from China to America. Yes, they are light in weight but $6.49 a pound is starting to approach close to the price of a good cut of beef! I like all three varieties of broccoli, but Chinese broccoli is a key ingredient in dishes like the simple Chicken with Chinese Broccoli . “The queen of vegetables!” “The longevity vegetable!” “The anti-cancer vegetable!” Yam leaves have a shape like a heart with long stems and have a very mild flavor and although they are not considered one of the more common Chinese vegetables, this healthy leafy green is very popular among Chinese people. Drain, pressing gently to squeeze out excess water. Braised Chinese Mushrooms with Baby Bok Choy. You can see the bottom of the chrysanthemum vegetable here. AA Choy is the leafy portion of celtuce or wo shun and is a common leafy green vegetable that is very popular in both Taiwan and China. Time and again, my worldwide web pursuits for solid recipes that I know my family will eat has landed me back here.”. Choy sum is thought of as the best of the Chinese Cabbages.Though the whole plant is edible, and the leaves are juicy and tender, it is the crunchy stems and flavorful flowers of Choy Sum which are the parts that are most sought after. The Chinese name of Yu Choy is 菜心 in Chinese, literally means “vegetable heart”.