RSSChinese Watercress, How I’ve Missed You
April 13th, 2008 | View Comments
My favorite Chinese restaurant in Pittsburgh closed last summer and since then I’ve been without my Chinese watercress.
Chinese watercress, which is sometimes called on choy, is my favorite vegetable in the world. The Mandarin name for it literally translates to “empty-hearted vegetable”, a nod to its hollow stem. It’s sweet and tender and utterly delicious when blanched and then stir-fried with a bit of garlic. I could eat it every day.
But it’s a pain to cook at home. First, I’ve never been able to find it in any regular grocery store. You have to go to a specialty Asian market (and usually one that favors Chinese cuisine). The long, thin, and very numerous leaves are a nightmare to rinse. And even after you’ve picked off all the bad leaves and chopped off the woody, inedible parts the stem, you still have so much plant that you must cook it in batches. Which then wilts down into a tiny and not-very-satisfying plate.
Paying $12 for a big plate of this stuff is entirely worth it.
Since my favorite restaurant closed, I’ve been looking for another Chinese restaurant that both makes edible Chinese watercress and will deliver to my house. And last week, a random Chinese take-out menu showed up in my mailbox.
It had Chinese watercress on the menu.
I ordered from there today and…mmmmmm. China Palace, you may have one of the most generic restaurant names ever, but you have a repeat customer. Thank you.
Yvonne posted this on April 13th, 2008 @ 7:57pm in Food/Cooking, Pittsburgh | Permalink to "Chinese Watercress, How I’ve Missed You"
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