This Chinese Mustard Greens Stir Fry shows you how to make tender gai choy, stir fried with smashed garlic. We also enjoy adding dried red peppers to add an extra flavorful kick to the dish.

What is Chinese mustard greens?

Chinese mustard greens is a species of the mustard plant. There are also actually several different types (or subspecies) of mustard greens, and today we are cooking with Gai Choy 芥菜 (aka Head Mustard).

Gai Choy grows about 12 inches in length and has a large bulb or stem with leafy greens at the top.

What do Chinese mustard greens taste like?

Chinese mustard greens, or gai choy tastes bitter, with hints of pepper. If you like bitter tasting veggies (bitter melon anyone?) you may enjoy this vegetable.

I would say that it’s definitely an acquired taste – and if you’ve acquired a taste for it this is a simple recipe on how you can make it at home! If you haven’t had it before, and would like to try it – this is your chance!

Different Types of Mustard Greens

As mentioned there’s a lot of different types of mustard greens, so read on to learn about a few of the popular ones:

• Curly mustard – also known as American mustard, this mustard has very frilly leaves. Curly mustard is a big pat in southern soul food cooking and is the type of mustard most commonly available in the United States!
• Gai Choy (the one we are making today) is also known as Chinese mustard, Indian mustard, or head mustard. As mentioned, it has a large bulb and is bitter.
• Leaf mustard – A smaller gai choy is the leaf mustard. It is also known as “bamboo mustard”, “small gai choy”, and “mustard cabbage”.
• Korean red mustard – The mustard plant produces deep purple-red leaves.
• Japanese giant red mustard – this giant-leafed mustard, also known as “Japanese mustard”, has purple-red savoy leaves with strong, sharp, peppery taste.
• Zhacai (榨菜) has big knobby swollen stems so it is also known as big stem mustard. It is very popular in Chinese food as it can be pickled and used in many cooking dishes such as with congee or zhacai shredded pork noodles.
• Snow mustard – This is another popular mustard greens in Chinese cooking. It is also known as Xuelihong 雪裡紅. It has long dark green leaves and a slightly pungent taste.

How to cook Chinese mustard greens?

First gather your ingredients:

• 1 lb Chinese mustard greens
• 2 tbsp cooking oil
• 3 cloves of garlic, smashed
• 5 small dried red peppers, optional
• Salt, to taste

Wash and clean Chinese mustard greens, and then cut it to smaller pieces (about 1/2 inch length). Separate the stem parts with the leafy parts.

Heat a wok or cooking pan, and add cooking oil on medium high heat. When the oil is hot, add garlic and dried red peppers, and stir fry for about 30 seconds.

Add the stem parts of the veggie in to wok/pan, and stir fry for about a minute. Then, add the leaves part and stir fry another 4-6 minutes, or until the greens is have just wilted to a dark green color, and is tender.

Add salt as desired, and stir to mix.

Remove from heat and serve!

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