By the way, let's talk about "gaiwan". Gaikai, is a long history of "mustard" varieties, especially refers to the large leaves, leaf veins thick, leaf surface wrinkled kind of southern gaikai. Gai cai is not a valuable vegetable, the price is small, but because of its frost-resistant, cold-resistant, barren, do not choose to live, easy to plant and easy to get, and easy to save, so in the south of the Yangtze River is widely planted in other places and Guangdong, Fujian, Sichuan and other places also have a wide range of planting. The cover vegetable seed is very small, after sowing, almost do not want any fertilizer, also do not need any special care, planted soon will be a lush green.
In the southern Fujian area, the people often cover the vegetable as "long life vegetable", the New Year's Eve ritual is an indispensable offering. Even the first day of Lunar New Year's Eve, the custom of eating gaiwan at home, in addition to taking its meaning of hard work, and pray for good luck and longevity of the wish. New Year's Eve dinner the first mouth to eat gaiwan became folklore, and has been inherited for generations.
There are many types of gaiwanese vegetables and ways to eat them.
① fried vegetables with the most common gaiwan, also known as large-leafed gaiwan look a little like cabbage, but the rhizome of the grub curved thick, peeled and garlic stir-fry, or broth, or fried shredded pork, stir-fried beef, fried shrimp, are clear and bitter, refreshing and cool; and because of the leafy stems contain a large number of carotenoids, is often taken as the eyesight of the therapeutic food for soups, stewed meat.
② root more robust mustard is the big head of cabbage, stem and leaf is very wide, low temperatures are often curled into a ball, look like cabbage, mainly with the stem after adding salt, pepper, chili, fennel, licorice and other spices such as powdered meat marinated for a few months, it is what we often eat squash.
3 small-leaf mustard is slender and spreading, close to the body of watercress, slender stems, leaves with hairy teeth, spicy flavor. One of the leaf is relatively fine, like iris chopped with garlic, ginger, salt, chili, pepper, etc. Mixed with 20 days, is the famous potherb mustard, soup, stir-fry, stir-fry are suitable, is the savory dishes in the fluttering good son.
④Another kind of wider leaves, hairy edges like fringe, slightly purple-red edge is curly mustard, taste similar to kale, in the United States is often canned as a side dish for sale, the most suitable for stews, but also often and spinach together with the mash, add melted cheese, as a snack snacks of salty and sweet crackers for dipping.
The gaiwan, one of my very favorite dishes.