Part 2 of 'Vegetables' Chinese Ingredients

As with many Chinese ingredients, texture is important in a vegetable: the spongy hair seaweed is both an absorber of sauce and a provider of texture; water chestnuts and bamboo shoots are pure texture foods. The flesh of winter melon is succulent and subtle, and the slippery taro goes especially well with duck. Ginkgo nuts and baby corn on the cob, often used in vegetarian dishes, add color and variety to a dish. The three preserved vegetables are popular seasonings for meat, soups and other vegetables.

Photography Copyright © Dorling Kindersley Limited, London

Chinese water chestnuts Crisp

Sweet-tasting sedge bulbs, used to provide a crunchy texture. They are also ground into flour.

Winter melon

Green gourd the flesh of which becomes almost transparent when cooked. It is often used in soup chicken or duck.

Taro

Root vegetable, frequently cooked with duck.

Hair seaweed

Product of Hopeh and Shensi provinces, this rather tasteless ingredient is used to absorb flavor and provide a slippery texture.

Bamboo shoots

Young shoots of bamboo plants, used for their texture in many Chinese dishes.

Young corn

Miniature corn on the cob, used in both vegetable and meat dishes.

Ginkgo nuts

Tender, mild-tasting nuts from the ginkgo tree.

Red-in-snow

Red-rooted variety of mustard plant that sprouts up through the spring snows.

Szechwan preserved vegetable

Mustard plant preserved in salt, then pickled with chili powder.

Pickled mustard green

Mustard green preserved in brine.

This Ingredients Tip was published in 'Yan-kit’s Chinese Cookbook by "Yan-Kit So (Foreword by Claudia Roden)" - p14 and p15'