Vegetables of the World - Chinese - Chinese Red Spinach

Hello, this week, I want to introduce you to Chinese Red Spinach, 紅莧菜, it's a more hearty version of the traditional spinach with colorful leaves, much like the maple leaves turning orange or red.  This vegetable carries purple, red, & green leaves. Chinese Red Spinach is supposed to have a good dose of iron per my mom.  Click and enlarge any of the images if you like. Let's dive right in!

Chinese Red Spinach with garlic

I got this from local Asian market, look for the purple/red leaves and strong healthy stalks, 

make sure they're not limp

closer look at the leaves

 here're the stalks

first, separate the leave from the stalks, discard any leaves that look sick, spotty, or yellowish

basically anything that you won't eat

then, break the stalks into one inch pieces while pulling off the membrane when you break them

it's like peeling them

discard the bottom part of the stalks as they are too tough

can you see those membranes?

give the Chinese Red Spinach a thorough wash, usually 3 times or until the water does not contain any sand at the bottom of the sink

slice up 3 cloves of garlic (more if you like :))

heat up one tablespoon of oil in medium heat (canola or peanut oil), 

add 1 teaspoon of coarse sea salt and then the garlic,

put the stems in first and stir for 30 secs, 

then add all the leaves & stir evenly, 

at this point you can add a tiny bit of cooking wine (optional),

cover the pan with a lid and turn the heat down to medium low,

it takes about 2 minutes or until you see the steam coming out,

then turn off the heat, let sit for 15 secs with the lid on.

and voila! here's a plate of yummy Chinese Red Spinach

Enjoy!

A little further details about the specific vegetable family, check out Wikipedia

Happy Eating!

Turnip Cake

Ever think about tea time or coffee break that you can have something other than cookies, muffins, scones, sandwiches, or coffee cake?  Not that they're not yummy but what if you want something not so indulged with sugar...here's something savory and it's just right for me & I hope you'll like it - Turnip Cake!  Made with lots of turnip, some starch, tiny bit of pork, tiny bit of shrimp, & some Shitake mushroom. After it's been steamed and cooled, you can leave it in the frig for about a week and reheat it in a pan and dip it with a bit of soy or hot sauce (Sriracha if you like), it's super satisfying and yummy!

 ready to eat turnip cake with 2 different sauces: hoisin sauce & hot sauce

 major ingredient: fresh turnip (some call it daikon), best to get in an Asian market because of the high turnover, you can tell by the firmness and the minimal air roots coming out of the turnip, be sure to pick a heavy one which signifies good moisture content.

 after you peeled the turnips, discard the top greens, julienne them for later use, other ingredients are sausage, mushroom, rice flour, & scallion.

 the dried Shitake mushroom usually comes in package like this, you can get it in Asian market which i think it's much better than those in a regular grocery store's Asian aisle.

 take few out, rinse them well, then use room temperature water to reconstitute them so it'll be soft, discard the stub, squeeze out excess liquid, then mince them to tiny pieces, save the soaking water for later.

  the Chinese pork sausage comes in vacuumed packaging like these

 take them out and steam them for 7 minutes, then mince as the same size as the mushroom, which is about 3mm cube and set aside.

about a small handful of dried shrimp, similar to the mushroom, reconstitute with water, then chopped and set aside.

chopped scallion, about 3 strands or 3 tablespoon chopped

last ingredient we need is the rice flour to bind them together, about 1 cup, use the soaking liquid of the mushroom and shrimp, add water if it's too thick. 

 

 add all the ingredients together, two teaspoons of salt, one teaspoon of white pepper, mix to a consistency like what's shown in the picture. 

transfer to a baking pan and steam for an hour or until the mixture is cooked through, you can test by inserting a toothpick to the center and if it comes out clean then it's ready.

done steaming, let it cool, then flip the turnip cake out of the baking pan.

slice into 1.5cm thickness 

 

or use a heart shape cookie cutter if you like, then pan sear it until golden brown on both sides, about 3 minutes each side.

if you go to dim sum by any chance, you could get Turnip cake in two different cooking methods. Here's the steamed one with soy sauce & sesame oil.

the other version you can always get from is this pan fried version, a little bit of the crunchy crust outside but nice & soft inside.

many like to add an egg or two when they seared the Turnip cake, especially for breakfast.
for those of you like spicy food, don't forget hot sauce to go with this, a well balanced flavor and texture. Try it and see for yourself.

Thanks for reading!

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!

Grass Jello

Hi Folks! Thank you for visiting my blog. Sorry for not posting for quite some time, I'll try making it a weekly contribution whenever possible.

Let's get right to it!  What exactly is Grass Jello made of?  I did a bit of the research and here's what I found:

First of all, the black cubes here is the Grass Jello, it's usually added to dessert like this snow ice, along with mango, red bean, & condensed milk drizzle.

 with shaved ice, ginger syrup, and red beans

 with green tea snow ice, green beans, red beans, & boba ( I prefer grass jello!)

It can be purchased in a can like this...you can find them in Asian markets

 Looks like liquid Obsidian, don't you agreed?

Cut them into cubes

Add some simple syrup & lego ice cubes to make a refreshing, simple, & fun dessert

Add fruits, syrup, & evaporated milk

So delicious with just watermelon...yum!

Here's one with red beans, lotus seeds, mochi, & some good old fashioned vanilla ice cream. Of course, you can use any ice cream you like, my preference is green tea ice cream :)

 This is the type of plant that Grass Jello is made from, it's called Mesona Chinensis

Scientific Classification: Kingdom > Plantae, Order > Lamiales, Family > Lamiaceae, Genus > Mesona, Species > M. chinensis

 Here's what the plant looks like, many were grown under fruit trees as a second crop.  Mesona chinensis belongs to the mint family, it grows extensively in Southeast Asia, for example China and Taiwan.  The plant prefers ravines, grassy, dry, and sandy areas, it grows from 15-100 cm tall with hairy stems and leaves. The leaves are of tear-drop shape and serrated edges.
In Chinese, it's called XianCao (仙草) or (涼粉草)
In Vietnamese, it is sương sáo 
In Thai, its name is เฉาก๊วย 

 Mesona Chinensis is allowed to oxidize and slightly dried to develop a concentrated flavor and darkened color

 Then, thoroughly dried and compressed into a drum for transportation to the factory 

 After cooking, the liquid is strained and separated

Finally, the freshly made Grass Jello is ready for consumption.  Restaurants or street vendors scoop these fresh grass jello, add all kinds of accompaniments and transform them into one of the favorite desserts of the Eastern culture.

Medicinal value:  Since the plant came from the mint family, it has cooling property and can offer heat relief in hot summer days. Some herbal medicine doctor recommend this to lower blood pressure.  If you taste the grass jello by itself, it's a bit bitter, that's why we use it in dessert.  The after taste of grass jello is wonderful, feels healthy and light.