Listen to this articleThere are many delicious Chinese dishes, which is your Favourate Chinese Vegetables?
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. You can’t avoid eating Chinese vegetables because they are essential for Chinese food. Here we list and explain you the most common ones. Next time when you eat with Chinese friends, you can even have a nice little conversation with them about what you are eating.
Favourate Chinese Vegetables Qīng cài 青菜 – leafy and green vegetables
This is a broad term to describe various leafy and green vegetables. Guangdong cuisine perhaps tops the country for its taste and variety, and qingcai top an average Guangdonger’s diet. They must have one or two cai dishes in a day, and here the cai, they only mean qingcai.
Cài xīn 菜心
The handsome looking caixin is a typical and basic Guangdong veggie with little yellow flowers. It tastes refreshing and somewhat sweet. The sweetness comes from the stalks, so the noble “long-leg” Zengcheng caixin always tops the market at the cost 50% more than its peers.
Bái cài 白菜
Known as bok choy or Chinese cabbage, it has two main kinds—xiao (small) baicai and da (big) baicai. The former is slender, small and dainty like a southern lady; The latter looks plump and is more common in the north. Due to its long shelf life, in the homes of north China, big bunches of da baicai are stored as the most trustworthy vegetable reserved for people throughout the long winters, when there are few cai available.
In Guangdong, another popular kind of baicai is the shàng hǎi qīng 上海青. It has the same features of baicai, only the stems are almost green. You will often see them be stir-fried with garlic.
Tōng cài 通菜
Known as water spinach, it’s crispy and chewy. Tongcai fried with fermented bean curd and pepper slices has been a favorite dish for Guangdongers. However, local myths say that eating too much tongcai will cause cramps during swimming, so locals call it “chōu jīn (cramp) cai”.
Shēng cài 生菜, lettuce
Crispy and sweet, shengcai is one of the staple cai of Guangdong. In special occasions such as Chinese New Year, families often serve up shengcai at the reunion dinner. Why? Because it is pronounced the same as “making money” in Chinese.
Jiè cài 芥菜
This plumpish spring and summer veggie tastes bitter and sweetish, but is very healthy. Its cold quality is not suitable for people who have the same, cold quality, according to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). However, you can simply solve this problem by adding several pieces of ginger, which falls in the hot category, to make it balanced.
Yóu mài cài 油麦菜
Featuring big long leaves with abundant minerals, it tastes and appears a bit like shengcai when it’s cooked.
Guangdongers like cooking cai in a fast dip-and-serve way to preserve the freshness. Oyster sauce is the favorite seasoning for cai dishes. Unlike other Chinese, who usually chop vegetables into segments to eat, Guangdongers prefer cai served in whole for a more natural feeling. All qingcai can be fried, souped, hot pot or porridge with meat.
Zhú sǔn 竹笋 – bamboo shoot
Bamboo shoots have been consumed by Chinese for at least 2,500 years. It is a fast-growing and distinctive plant native to Asia, using in numerous Asian dishes and broths. Because of its natural toxins, it must be thoroughly boiled to destroy the toxins before being used in any other ways. In TCM, it is a cold food and good for removing inner heat.
Common dishes with zhusun: Zhusun fried with pork or Chinese bacon, zhusun fried with fungus, radish and celery, stewed zhusun and pork.
Kǔ guā 苦瓜 – bitter melon
As the name suggests, the unusual taste of kugua drives many foreigners away. However, its benefits in treating a variety of ailments, including diabetes and skin problems bring them to Chinese dining table. Introduced from India in the 14th century, this veggie is dubbed “junzi (gentleman) cai” in Chinese culture because it never passes its unfavorable taste to other ingredients.
Common dishes with kugua: Kugua fried with eggs, kugua fried with pork, kugua soup with pig ribs.
Dōng guā 冬瓜 – winter melon
Don’t be fooled by the name, it’s a non-winter, non-sweet gourd with white flesh and dark green hairy skin. In fact, it’s a vegetable that matures in the heart of summer and brags to eliminate the heat (“xiāo shǔ” 消暑) when making soup with barley. Growing as large as 80 cm in length, it’s widely used in soup and dessert soup in the summer.
Common dishes with donggua: Donggua soup with barley and pork, donggua soup with pig ribs, donggua dessert soup with kelp and green beans, donggua fried with fermented black beans and pork.
