Vegetables of the World - Chinese - Gai Lan (Chinese Broccoli)

Hi, there! Let's talk vegetables, since we're so health conscious and looking back when I was growing up in Hong Kong, our everyday diet was focus on Rice & Vegetables!!!  Meat was an accompaniment to add flavor, but our main portion at dinner besides rice is Greens, Chinese Greens! And they are God sent! Fresh, crisp, chewy, sweet, salty, yummy, & satisfying!  One of the top three Chinese vegetables has to be Gai Lan (Chinese Broccoli or Kai Lan) in my opinion. It is the staple vegetables if you go to restaurants in Asia and simply order a dish of vegetables. Gai Lan or Choy Sum is what you'll get depending on the season, generally colder weather flavors Gai Lan and warmer weather flavors Choy Sum (will introduce in my next post or two). I remember my mom would get them fresh in the morning from the market, in Asia, farmer's market is a permanent display for every residential neighborhood. 

In Los Angeles, you can actually get them in some big grocery stores like Ralphs or Vons, but best to get Gai Lan from Asian market as the turnover is great and sourcing seems better.  I usually go to 99 Ranch market but there's one market in my "Dim Sum" post that has the greatest baby Chinese vegetables I've seen. They are very reasonably priced, about $2 per bag.

Here's a nice looking plate of Gai Lan in oyster sauce! Let's go step by step, here we go...

Get them in package like this, look for the green healthy looking leaves & the bottom of the stems to see if they're still fresh (not dried up!)

 we'll need sea salt, oyster sauce, & canola oil (you can use peanut oil or vegetable oil if you like, try to avoid using olive oil cause I don't find the olive taste matches Gai Lan)

take them out from the bag and we need to pick out the bad leaves

if you enlarge this picture you'll be able to see the bruising, spots, or anything that doesn't look right.  The rule of thumb is if you don't want to eat that then discard them.  These are the examples of my discards

 went through the whole bag and these are the toss out

here's one single stem of broccoli looks like

after the careful picking, these are what we'll use

soak them and wash them carefully, I open up each branch to rinse through

close up

all cleaned and set aside. Now is the time to boil a big pot of water

once the water is boiling, add a tablespoon of sea salt.  Since the stems are thicker and take longer to cook, we drop them into the boiling water stems in first for a couple minutes...

then push all the green leaves and have them submerged in the hot water until

the water is reboiling for about 2 minutes, add a teaspoon of canola oil to the water, this will add gloss and help separate the leaves, then fish them out onto a plate

can you see the steam rising?

 

use a tong to hold down the Gai Lan then use a sharp knife to cut them into 2" pieces and drizzle with Oyster sauce. You can put the sauce on the side if you like.

I hope you'll try it and taste for yourself, please ask any questions you may have, I'll try best to answer. A little further details about the specific vegetable family >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai-lan

Happy Eating!