Chinese vegetables

[eatingwitheddie]

There's a restaurant around the corner from me that put long beans as described on their buffet and they rock out...

Where's your corner?

[eatingwitheddie]

When longbeans are wilted down (either by stirfrying or "braising" in liquid) and then are glazed with a flavored cornstarch slurry they get pleasantly chewy--not rubbery like the boring green bean.

Actually when it's properly prepared I think that the classic Szechuan dish, Dry Sauteed String Beans, is one of the greatest dishes in all of Chinese cooking. While the beans are not raw they are only cooked for about 10 seconds in super hot oil, this makes them bright green and crisp and really brings out their natural flavor. By the way, in Chinese, string beans are called 'four-season beans.'

[anil]

HKG hong kong garden?

Flowering greens : may I ask how you'd prepare them simply, steamed with a soy sauce, piece of fish and timbals. Or if you would.

Sorry my mistake in using IATA codes. In IATA terms, HKG represents HongKong. I am mostly on flyertalk, which has a side-effect of my using Airport codes to represent cities.

I did not prepare them. In season, you'd find these in the night-market in Kowloon.

[Ruth]

I always have a bunch of flowering chives in the fridge. To be honest I use them not only in Chinese stir fries but raw and finely chopped as a garnish in innumerable dishes. They have a so much more character than the wimpy chives of Western cuisines.

[mudbug]

Jon Tseng ,

How do you cook the garlic shoots? Have a recipe?

eatingwitheddie ,

Long beans, they are best eaten when no more than pencil wide (making the seeds undetectable), otherwise they are too 'old' for eating and can be tough. Similar to knowing when to harvest common American vegetables. They simply have a more hardy flavor and texture.

>By the way, in Chinese, string beans are called 'four-season beans'.

Are you still referring to yard long beans aka asparagus beans?

>Does anyone like flowering (Chinese) chives? Are they available in your location?

I assume you mean what are commonly called 'Garlic Chives' (Allium tuberosum) budding? Readily available at most Asian Groceries and herb gardens.

anil ,

What specifically is Chinese Watercress? Can you post the botanical name? or the Chinese name? or a picture?

I suspect the "ye heung fa" is "yu heung" flowers or thai basil flowers.

loufood,

Try the longbeans with Preserved Hot Bean Curd (M.T.T Brand), even better...!

pjs ,

Longbeans should be readily available at any Asian Grocery Store.

lissome ,

Pictures of Garlic Shoots/Garlic Scapes:

Akiko , Vanessa is correct.

The Botanical/Scientific/Latin name for the vegetable you are referring to is Ipomoea aquatica, I. reptans. For more information, look here

Ipomoea aquatica, I. reptans The following list is by no means complete:

English: tropical spinach, water ipomea, water spinach, water sweet potato, swamp cabbage, swamp morning glory, kangkong, water convolvus bamboo

Chinese: weng cai (pitcher vegetable), ong choi, ung choi (pitcher vegetable), tung tsoi (hollow vegetable), kong xin cai (empty heart or empty stem vegetable), ong tung tsoi

Danish: kangkong, bladgrøntsag

Dutch: kangkong

Filipino: kangkong, balangog, galatgat

French: liseron d’eau, patate aquatique

German: Sumpf-Trichterwinde

Hindi: kalmisag, karmi, patuasag

Italian: patate acquatica, villucchio d’acqua

Japanese: you-sai, en-sai, asagaona

Malay: kangkong

Portuguese: batata acquatica, cancon

Spanish: batatilla aquática, boniato de agua, camotillo

Thai: white: paagboong, phak bung, pak boong chin

red: pak boong thai

Vietnamese: rau muong

[browniebaker]

Two favorites:

(1) K'ong shin ts'ai (in Mandarin), or ing ts'ai (in Taiwanese), or ong choy (in Cantonese). My mother still grows them in her garden, after all these years. She snaps each stem into sections so that each stem-section has a leaf, puts the entire bunch in a big pot of boiling water to blanch, and drains them in a colander. She puts in a mixing bowl a egg-size lump of lard that she skimmed off the top of the pot of red-braised pork, along with a little bit of the delicious braising sauce (which contains soy sauce, garlic, rice wine, dried shiitake mushroom, and black pepper); raw minced garlic, and salt and black pepper to taste. She tosses in the drained greens while they are still warm. When I was a child, my much-awaited treat was to stir, and pick out a strand for the first taste. Pungent, unctuous deliciousness!

(2) Tang uh-a ts'ai (in Taiwanese; my own imperfect transliteration), which is translatable as "winter-oyster vegetable." Medium-green, with thin, elongated oval leaves, this delicate vegetable needs just a quick blanching. My mother cooks these vegetables very quickly in a clear soup of fish balls or in noodle soup. Winter-oyster does best in a simple, clear broth, in which its pleasantly bitter taste shines through.

Oh, goodness, I am feeling an almost painful vegetable-longing!

Edited July 21, 2003 by browniebaker (log)

[bao]

Chinese watercress

Chinese broccoli (choi sum)

Chinese long beans

[Hest88]

Count me in as an ong choy fan. If I had to choose a last meal, this would be part of it. Ong Choy sauteed with spicy fermented tofu, garlic, and hot peppers. Yum! When I was younger I prefered it with shrimp paste, but now it's the tofu all the way!

Watercress blanched or sauteed, drizzled with sesame oil and soy sauce.

Sauteed pea sprouts with garlic. Uh, I know in English there's a difference between pea shoots and pea sprouts but I can never remember which is which. I'm talking about the large-leaf "tai" ones that look almost like spinach as opposed to the delicate ones.

Sauteed amaranth. Until recently I had no idea that the veggie was amaranth in English! Of course, it also took me years to associate the herb "chives" with the bitter, cooked stuff that my mom and dad loved!

Oh, and one of my comfort foods is sauteed napa cabbage. My college roommate (who was from HK) and I ate a lot of that in school. Loved the crunchy sweetness.

[mudbug]

The availability of produce, granted, has come a long way in the past decade, especially with ethnic produce. Even so, just as a fresh tomato picked seconds before eating is of superior quality, backyard, homegrown, garden fresh produce of any kind is always revered.

Do you currently grow any Asian vegetables, and if so, what? Did you grow them as a child? Or did/do your parents grow them? What did they grow? How did they grow them? Any memorable stories? Fond memories? Special growing tips? Trellising ideas? Harvesting tips? What are your favorites? If you could only grow one thing, what would it be?

Edited July 21, 2003 by mudbug (log)

[torakris]

I do, but I don't know if I really count since I live in Japan.

I experiment with new things every year, but my two favorites I can't live with out are shiso and shishito.

This summer I purchased a yuzu tree and it already has quite a few fruits about the size of my pinky nail.

I am hoping this fall to get a couple more fruiting trees. I live in a rental so I don't want to plant directly in the ground, so my backyard may soon be full of huge containers.

I want kinkan (kumquats), sudachi (Japanese citrus) and kaffir lime (though I don't know if it would work here and I have never seen them in Japan.

[trillium]

We grow mostly herbs because we're limited to growing things in containers. We grow sweet Asian basil, Holy basil, lemon basil, gau choy, Chinese celery, 3 mints and laksa leaf (aka polygonum or rau ram). The basils and laksa leaf need constant trimming to stay nice and bushy and lush. The celery needs damp soil. The gau choy needs a very warm spot and plenty of fertilizer.

We also grow chillies, 2 or three kinds (sky-pointing, long and a scotch bonnet) and eggplants (a miniature Japanese variety because the season is so short here). If we only grew one thing (like last summer when we just moved) it would be chillies. The partner doesn't feel right if we don't have at least 3 different kinds of sambal in the freezer, dried red chillies, frozen green and red short ones and frozen long red chillies, by autumn's end. Chillies need lots and lots of heat and enough calcium so they don't get blossom end rot. Eggplants (at least the ones I'm growing) seem idiot proof...they just need to be big and sturdy and the night temps over 50 F before you put them out.

This summer we're trying long beans in containers with a trellis made from 3 bean poles with a cross-hatch which is bungee-corded to a post on the porch. So far it's working well. I swear that you can see the vines growing. In the fall I'm going to plant gai lan.

I recommend the book _The Bountiful Container_ which is filled with growing tips for quite a lot of Asian veggies (even gau choy) in containers.

regards,

trillium

[Hest88]

I'm not a gardener, but my parents grow chives (to saute with) and taro.

[coastcat]

I've grown snow peas for years. They take little maintenance or horizontal room, and there are few summer delights to equal raw snow peas right off the vine (or sauteed briefly with a touch of garlic oil).

[Shiewie]

browniebaker

Tang uh-a ts'ai (in Taiwanese; my own imperfect transliteration), which is translatable as "winter-oyster vegetable." Medium-green, with thin, elongated oval leaves, this delicate vegetable needs just a quick blanching. My mother cooks these vegetables very quickly in a clear soup of fish balls or in noodle soup. Winter-oyster does best in a simple, clear broth, in which its pleasantly bitter taste shines through.

Is this the "Tang uh-a ts'ai" you're referring to which is known as "tong ho choy" in Cantonese (Chrysanthemum Greens)?

I love it in soups, steamboats or just stir-fried with garlic.

[Gary Soup]

Our "everyday" vegetable is qing cai (or "qing guang cai"), better known as Shanghai Bok Choy.

The link below is an excellent printable (.pdf) guide to the identification of Chinese vegetables, complete with sketches and Mandarin, Cantonese, scientific and English names:

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ppq/manuals/pdf_...ble%20Guide.pdf

[browniebaker]

browniebaker

Tang uh-a ts'ai (in Taiwanese; my own imperfect transliteration), which is translatable as "winter-oyster vegetable." Medium-green, with thin, elongated oval leaves, this delicate vegetable needs just a quick blanching. My mother cooks these vegetables very quickly in a clear soup of fish balls or in noodle soup. Winter-oyster does best in a simple, clear broth, in which its pleasantly bitter taste shines through.

Is this the "Tang uh-a ts'ai" you're referring to which is known as "tong ho choy" in Cantonese (Chrysanthemum Greens)?

Yes, that's it! Wow, it's great to know the English name. Thanks so much for posting it. Mom never used garlic with it; I'll have to try it.

[mudbug]

brownie baker,

Actually, the correct English name is Garland Chrysanthemum. The Latin/Botanical/Scientific name is Chrysanthemum Coronarium. The pdf link Gary provided is a great resource. Here is another you may find useful with common names from different countries: Garland Chrysanthemum from an Asian Vegetable Thesaurus.

And this link contains more information and recipes you may want to try. Enjoy!

[trillium]

Tong ho choy is also part of the traditional bah ku teh (pork rib and herbal soup) breakfast in Singapore anyways.

regards,

trillium

[torakris]

brownie baker,

Actually, the correct English name is Garland Chrysanthemum. The Latin/Botanical/Scientific name is Chrysanthemum Coronarium. The pdf link Gary provided is a great resource. Here is another you may find useful with common names from different countries: Garland Chrysanthemum from an Asian Vegetable Thesaurus.

And this link contains more information and recipes you may want to try. Enjoy!

Thanks for the link!

Since I don't speak Chinese, the names have just been going over my head.

This chrysanthemum for example is known as shungiku in Japanese and is one of my favorite greens.

One of my favorite ways of preparing it is to cut it up in to about 2 inch long pieces toss it with a little soy and sesame seeds then heat up some sesame oil until just smoking pour it over the greens then mix it into hot rice. A simple and tasty addition to a meal.

[tonkichi]

Tong ho choy is also part of the traditional bah ku teh (pork rib and herbal soup) breakfast in Singapore anyways.

regards,

trillium

and steamboats...

this is relatively expensive compared to the other types of green vegetables in the market.

[tissue]

I'm not a gardener, but my parents grow chives (to saute with) and taro.

Home grown chives are the best for dumplings... cut them young, when they have a much more delicate flavor.

[titus wong]

Oops, posted in the wrong topic!

Edited July 23, 2003 by titus wong (log)

[titus wong]

I'm new to this forum but have been following this thread with great interest. Largely inspired by some of the posts here and in particular, by one article appearing in the Seattle Times, I've tried to perfect my technique for cooking water spinach (aka ong choy, kong xin cai, kang kung, phak bung, rau moung).

I'm not pleased with my efforts. The greens always seem to be somewhat tougher than I prefer, or at least what I can recall from my childhood or experiences abroad. Initially, I believe the fault lay in picking out greens past their prime from my local Vietnamese greengrocer. Water spinach in my locale, is typically saran-wrapped in bunches, averaging two feet in length, and seems to be virtually identical from bunch to bunch. I resolved to find bunches with smaller, thinner leaves thinking this would be a good indication of younger, tender greens. Can anyone suggest a better method for picking good water spinach?

It's possible as well, that I may not be cooking them properly. Typically, I remove the bottom two inches, and portion the remainder into 4" lengths. Most of the recipes I have discovered on the internet, claim that water spinach need not be sauteed for longer than a few minutes. Although the leaves remain bright green, the stalks are still more fibrous than I prefer. I usually blanch them beforehand, or simply leave them in the wok until they turn a far darker shade of green. Is this normal? I'm using a 14" aluminum wok (Magnalite), high heat, and usually, very little oil (one to two tablespoons on average). Can anyone suggest a better method for cooking water spinach? Am I doing something wrong?

Following a suggestion from the Seattle Times article referenced below, I attempted to purchase shrimp paste. I discovered that several countries export it (Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand) under different labels and names. There seems to be roughly two types: salted and sauteed. I rolled the dice and picked up a Filipino brand of the sauteed variety. Price ($1.55 for 12 oz.) was largely the deciding factor here. Can anyone suggest a particular brand, and perhaps, a brief explanation between the two types, expressing a preference for one over the other?

Thanks in advance if anyone can proffer some help.

Link to Seattle Times article:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw...0602/taste.html

Edited July 23, 2003 by titus wong (log)

[trillium]

hi there

First of all, there are several types of stuff that get translated as "shrimp paste" but they're not really the same thing. Well, some of them are close, some are not.

Singaporeans, Malay and Indonesians all use something that goes by belecan (it gets spelled a lot of different ways) for Malaysia and S'pore and trasi for Indonesia. The best stuff in this country is the stuff from Malaysia. There are a few different brands, but it gets sold in blocks wrapped in paper. You can usually smell it before you get to it at the store. Good belecan should be kind of moist and oily when you slice it, but solid. When it's too old, it dries out and gets crumbly. It's never added to dishes raw, it's either wrapped in banana leaves or foil and cooked over a flame or put into pastes that get fried in oil. Cooking it mellows the flavor and makes it richer. Thais use something similiar, but in a different form, it goes by gkapi or kapi. It's very close to belecan (in a pinch you could substitute one for the other, I suppose) but it's more of a paste, not a solid. It's less dry and in my experience has a slightly more pungent, fermenty taste but isn't as strong. It gets sold in little (about 1/4 c) tubs. My favorite brand is Tra Chang (red label with a scale on it) but it's hard to find on the west coast. Another good one is Klong Kone. Gkapi gets treated the same way (cooked before use).

There is another thing that HK folks buy that is a grey-pinkish color and it gets called shrimp paste too. It's a very different animal and I don't have any experience cooking with it. I know it gets used in stir-fried seafood dishes like squid or clams. The last thing I can think of that gets labelled shrimp paste is a molassy type of stuff that use use for salads like rojak, it's not so pungent and very sweet and black colored. It's also sold in little tubs. I know it by it's Hokkien name, hae kor. At our house we don't use it for kangkung, but the parnter says it does get used for that too, in different regions. You don't need to cook this one first. I don't know anything about the Filipino shrimp paste, maybe someone else does. If you're curious I can email a friend who is half Thai and half Filipina, I bet she'll know.

None of these things should be very pricey (all under $3 or so), but in general for this stuff, the more you pay, the better the quality. The Thai products tend to be the most expensive, but not by much.

As for kangkung, it is different then what you can get abroad. A friend of mine from western China says it's lacking fragrance. The S'porean in the house just thinks they're picked a little too old or get too wilted waiting around in the shops. Your best bet is to pick ones that look perky and not wilted. Then you break off pieces around two inches or so until you get the last leaves. Discard the stem that follows the last leaves, it's too tough. We wash ours and then spin it dry in a salad spinner and cook it over really high heat only briefly. The leaves will wilt, get a little darker, and the stems should stay crunchy. Maybe you'll like the crunchy stems better when they're in smaller pieces. Long pieces are really hard to eat and can even get the gag reflex going!

Last night we ate kangkung with sambal belecan (a hot "sauce" made from chillies, shallots, garlic and belecan paste) and garlic. Sometimes we eat it with fish sauce, yellow beans and chillies. It's a pretty flexible veggie and you can flavor it any way you like, really.

Hope this helps, and welcome.

regards,

trillium

[Hest88]

Titus, I've adopted the rather wasteful practice of my mom's and basically cut off the long stems as close as possible to where the leaves start growing more densely. Then I hand-pluck the remainder so I have about a two inch stalk, making sure each section contains at least one leaf.

My aunt, who worked in the Chinese restaurant, then told me to blanch them (the way you do) in boiling water with a spoonful of baking soda and drain.

I heat up the wok with a good amount of oil, then put either the shrimp paste or fermented tofu in, and then throw the ong choy in. I stir fry it just long enough to incorporate the paste or tofu because the blanching seems to almost completely cook it anway.

Oh, and I use the Chinese shrimp paste that's the lavenderish pasty stuff, so it's semi-liquid already.