Bok Choy: not quite Chinese cabbage, but close.
Heading Chinese cabbage is just like regular heading cabbage, maybe looser, maybe more tender or maybe in-between cabbage and Romaine lettuce. Cos lettuce? I don't know lettuce well, but say it's like Caeser Salad.
Anyway, Bok Choy LEAVES are like an average of Swiss Chard, collard greens and spinach.
Maybe like a mustard, but little or no "zing" and they seem to have a "meatier" favor to me.
The baby leaves are great in salad, raw, like baby spinach.
Bigger leaves can be used in salad, but I think they're best steamed or boiled like greens. Better and more tender than Chard.
Big old leaves and stems go into soup (or classic Chinese stir-fry). The most complicated thing I do with them is soup.
I would say that Bok Choy STEMS are like celery except that they taste good. My apologies to any fans of celery reading this. Sweeter and with more water and no strings until they get REALLY big and old. What I read says "boil in soup or stir-fry", but I crunch them raw because they're juicy and sweet. Very seldom will young and middle-aged stems get past me and into the soup pot. I eat them sliced into chunks as an appetizer.
If it were me, I would serve the leaves as salad and boiled or steamed greens for a year or two before admitting they were wierd-looking "foreign". The plants do look like space aliens. Maybe call them thick-stemed Chard. The shape of some Bok Choy stems must have given the Chiense the idea for those big soup spoons that look like ice-cream scoops.
My Mom was suspicious of them and insisted on boiling them into mjush before serving them
One thing: they are Brassicas, so they will cross-pollinate with anything Cruciferous like broccoli, caulilfower, cabbage of any sort, mustard or kale. Turnips?
