Asian Vegetables

digitS'

Garden Master
Joined
Dec 13, 2007
Messages
26,599
Reaction score
31,993
Points
457
Location
border, ID/WA(!)
Stir-frying was a way for me to significantly and happily increase my vegetable consumption. It led to what I felt was a more healthy diet and better use of my garden.

Leafy greens were, of course, an important part of this. After finally learning the identity of one that was a pleasing favorite at Chinese restaurants for my entire young life, I remember my first venture home with some of those greens from a supermarket. Yuck! The produce manager must have been even more in the dark about the Asian vegetables than I was. Luckily, there was an Asian market not far away and I came to know Asian American gardeners.

Still, there are some problems with integrating European American traditional with Asian gardening. Some of that has to do with names for the plants. While my "Better Vegetable Gardening the Chinese Way," helped me better learn gardening in beds, it's no help with names. Ya know, one problem is adopting one society's name into a different language. I just learned that a veggie that I've grown for decades, and was willing to accept as either bok or pak choy, is also known as "buk" or "bai" choy by some English speakers. Toss choy, choi, or cai into the mix. Sheesh!

Some of the problem is the limitations of the English language. For example, the uncommon use of unaspirated p, t, k, b, d, ɡ ... Maybe some of you remember being taught in school that the capital of China was Peking. (Wow, my spell checker still knows that word!) Anyway, spelling it Beijing didn't mean that they moved the capital to a different city.

At one time, I had a useful link to webpages maintained by the University of Melbourne that helped identify Asian vegetables by scientific name and common names. That information later showed up on an Australian government website. I'm not finding either, today. Can anyone help with that? And, what Asian vegetables make up an important part of your gardening? Or, that you would like to try?

Steve
good gracious! just how old is this tablet and its spell checker??
 

ninnymary

Garden Master
Joined
Dec 7, 2009
Messages
12,598
Reaction score
12,493
Points
437
Location
San Francisco East Bay
Steve, I'm trying to grow more asian greens thanks to your inspiration! Had planted some Lady Purple bok choy and Joi Choi but the darn rats ate them. It's ok, I just caught one in a trap, yuck but they are not going to eat my hard earned gardening produce. I'll be replanting some more. I especially like Joi Choi since you can harvest outer leaves for a long time.

Mar
 

AMKuska

Garden Master
Joined
Jan 25, 2014
Messages
2,274
Reaction score
5,597
Points
317
Location
Washington
I also love Asian vegetables. :) I'm regularly bringing home new things from our local H-Mart to find out if I like them. This is how I found out I do not like bitter melon, that winter melon actually tastes like a giant cucumber, and bok choy ended up getting added to my regular menu.

We eat a lot of Asian dishes at our house. The things that actually make it into my garden though are bok choy, nappa cabbage and daikon radishes. I'd like to try a lotus plant one time for the roots too. YUMMY!!
 

Pulsegleaner

Garden Master
Joined
Apr 18, 2014
Messages
3,537
Reaction score
6,934
Points
306
Location
Lower Hudson Valley, New York
I've had similar problems buying packet seed in Chinatown. Sometimes it's semi easy, since some Chinese companies (especially those with a large US presence) include pictures on the front, so I can at least work out the species (at least, provided the stuff inside matches the stuff on the package).

A few companies, however, use a generic package, with only the name of the vegetable (in Chinese characters) to differentiate one packet from another. Then, I had to rely on help from the florist (I don't know why, but while there are SOME grocery stores in Chinatown who have small seed racks, the sale of seeds there is usually left in the hands of the florists. I suppose it may be simply because, living in NYC few people have much, or any yard space, so running a plant nursery isn't really feasible.) which was often itself a problem if the florist wasn't all that good with English (and me not being very good a Chinese).
MY saving moment came, ironically, from one of my other hobbies, collecting foreign children's books. In one lot I bought, I found a Chinese children's book on vegetables, which had pictures AND the names. After that I just popped the book in my backpack, and when I went looking at the seeds, simply bought the package whose characters matched those in the book for what I wanted.
On RARE occasions, the seed sold wasn't in a packet AT ALL, just in little Ziplocs (I think this was when they bought seed in bulk or in a BIG packet, and then divided it up). My ong choi (water spinach) came that way. I was able to identify THAT simply because I knew what the seed looked like from earlier (and lets face it, there are comparatively few other Chinese greens in the Convuvulacae family, so if you see one, and it isn't morning glory seed (wrong color) it's probably water spinach.
Then there was the time I went to my local Chinese market, because a recipe called for something called chin jiu (pearl leaf) and I had to ask because the book said nothing more about it (except you could deep fry mint leaves as a substitute) The sore owner had no idea what I was talking about. Some time later, I actually found it on THIER seed rack, under it's Thai name, bai horaphaa (it's actually a kind of Thai basil.)
Those Thai seed packets were their own headache. Beyond the fact that the store just got them in without checking if any of the seeds were suitable for the area (most weren't) there was the problem of "breaking a pack" The seeds were packaged in groups of packs encased in cellophane. The problem was, the packs in a given package were NOT all the same seed! Each package had a selection of various seed packs (sort of like a mini make your own garden). The store sold the packs one by one, but never seemed to notice this fact, so I had to often ask them to "break a pack" to actually get the seed I wanted!

I also love Asian vegetables. :) I'm regularly bringing home new things from our local H-Mart to find out if I like them. This is how I found out I do not like bitter melon, that winter melon actually tastes like a giant cucumber, and bok choy ended up getting added to my regular menu.

We eat a lot of Asian dishes at our house. The things that actually make it into my garden though are bok choy, nappa cabbage and daikon radishes. I'd like to try a lotus plant one time for the roots too. YUMMY!!


I'm fairly sure that one is not supposed to try and eat winter melon raw. It's pretty much ONLY used for the soup(s), and for a few braised dishes (which are basically the soups minus most of the liquid.) If you are just trying to sauté or steam it, you're better off with mao gwa (hairy gourd), which is basically winter melon picked very young.

Your welcome to TRY lotus, but bear in mind they are BIG, and need a LOT of water space and mud bottom)

Now that I think of it, I have a similar problem with some processed vegetables as well. I am VERY fond of the Chinese noodle dish called "Ha Moon" (Cantonese)/"Xia Men" (Mandarin)/Amoy(English) Chow Mai Fun. To make this myself, I need a certain type of Chinese pickled vegetable. Problem is, I have no idea WHICH kind, The Chinese have HUNDREDS). And I can't look it up online, because, for some odd reason, NO recipe for the stuff online even MENTIONS the pickled vegetables (or agrees with each other about what the rest of the ingredients should be). In fact, I have found several sites claiming that it isn't even an authentic Chinese dish (they claim I was slapped together in England as a pale imitation of Singaporean rice noodles to cater to the "timid" tourists. Then how it became a dish you pretty much HAVE to go to Chinatown (or at least a Chinatown type restaurant) to get remains a mystery (just like, what is the boiled ham substituting for?)
 

AMKuska

Garden Master
Joined
Jan 25, 2014
Messages
2,274
Reaction score
5,597
Points
317
Location
Washington
I'm fairly sure that one is not supposed to try and eat winter melon raw. It's pretty much ONLY used for the soup(s), and for a few braised dishes (which are basically the soups minus most of the liquid.) If you are just trying to sauté or steam it, you're better off with mao gwa (hairy gourd), which is basically winter melon picked very young.

Your welcome to TRY lotus, but bear in mind they are BIG, and need a LOT of water space and mud bottom)

You are right, winter melon is almost exclusively made into soup. We found this out after trying it. I don't regret viewing my food in a free-spirited way, and experimenting with it instead of just trying what everyone else has always done before.

If I was afraid of getting it wrong, I probably wouldn't try anything new at all. That would be a terrible shame.
 

Pulsegleaner

Garden Master
Joined
Apr 18, 2014
Messages
3,537
Reaction score
6,934
Points
306
Location
Lower Hudson Valley, New York
You are right, winter melon is almost exclusively made into soup. We found this out after trying it. I don't regret viewing my food in a free-spirited way, and experimenting with it instead of just trying what everyone else has always done before.

If I was afraid of getting it wrong, I probably wouldn't try anything new at all. That would be a terrible shame.
I should have mentioned that I found out in college you can also pickle it, if you get a young one. The seeds are also edible, roasted*

If it helps, I can pass on the recipe I use for Winter Melon Soup. I tend to make the Shanghai version (which is basically just melon and ham in broth) as opposed to the Cantonese "Eight Treasures" version (i.e. the one with the egg, the various meats, the peas and so on).

To be honest, even if you had LOVED winter melon (which I do) I really couldn't recommend growing it in your garden. Aside from the fact I know of no varieties that are short enough season to grow as far north as you (or I) there is the problem that the things are so damn BIG. The average winter melon is about 100 pounds (well maybe more like 80, but still, it's HUGE). That's why the sell it in chunks, NO ONE (or nearly no one) can get through a whole one.** And, if you grow it, you are dealing not with ONE melon, but with DOZENS! You'd have to eat the soup three times a day every day all year a gallon at a time just to keep up! I have HEARD there are smaller "family friendly" types, but have yet to try one (due to the climate thing).

*Though if you are doing that, you pretty much have to find a type OTHER than Canton Giant (i.e. the one you usually see) Canton Giant has rather oddly shaped seeds (so oddly, that when I first got seed for another type, I thought they had put the wrong seed in the package!) which don't really have much of a "seam" on the side. So when you try and shell them in your mouth (like the Chinese do) or by hand (like we tend to with pumpkin seeds) the shell tends to splinter rather than split, making for an unpleasant experience.)

** As far as I know, the only people who actually buy whole winter melons are restaurants who are planning to use the shell of the melon AS the soup tureen.
 

Zeedman

Garden Master
Joined
Dec 10, 2016
Messages
3,912
Reaction score
12,033
Points
307
Location
East-central Wisconsin
Wow, I used to have several sites bookmarked which listed Asian vegetables, with species & alternate names in many other languages... all appear to have since disappeared. :( Wiki supplies a lot of those translations in their entries.

Asian vegetables make up a large portion of the garden every year, since DW & I both enjoy that cuisine. Bunching onions, yardlong beans (many varieties), edamame soybeans (many varieties), adzuki beans, water spinach (kang kong / ong choy), Moringa, bitter melon (my avatar), bottle gourd, kabocha squash, and will be trying luffa this year. Other greens occasionally, such as molokhia, leaf amaranth, and sweet potato greens. Lots of garlic, which while not common in East Asian cooking, is essential in many Filipino dishes.

We eat a lot of chayote squash, which we grew for many years in California; but much as I wish it were otherwise, they won't fruit in our climate. I would like to grow more of the Asian crucifers (cabbage family), but cabbage loopers are so bad here that we would have to spray them every two weeks (which I won't do). They are available fresh & year-round from the local Oriental market anyway. We have to buy daikon radishes too, because our soil is too hard to cultivate deeply enough. :(
 

Phaedra

Garden Addicted
Joined
Jun 26, 2021
Messages
2,852
Reaction score
14,175
Points
215
Location
Schleiden, Germany USDA 8a
You are right, winter melon is almost exclusively made into soup. We found this out after trying it. I don't regret viewing my food in a free-spirited way, and experimenting with it instead of just trying what everyone else has always done before.

If I was afraid of getting it wrong, I probably wouldn't try anything new at all. That would be a terrible shame.
In Taiwan, we also use winter melon to make "sweetened white gourd drink" - a very popular cold drink for summer. This might be the only way to consume the entire winter melon; otherwise, when we buy it from the farmer's market, we usually just get a small ring.

It can make good soup or stew; the quickest soup I used to make is winter melon + ginger + fresh clams, delicious!
 
Top