Chillybean said:
I am not sure I've ever eaten Bok Choy. What is it served with? If I can attempt making chicken with all kinds of Indian spices, maybe I can try Bok Choy.
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>> What is it served with?
Honestly, given stir-fry recipes: everything. I forget whether this is a North China insult for South Chinese, or vice-versa:
"THEY eat anything with legs except the table, and anything with wings except airplanes".
The white stems are bland but quite sweet. I crunch them raw like candy. But you can chop them into pinkie-sized strips and stir fry, steam, or boil briefly. "Warm" is all they need.
My mother was suspicious of this fancy-pants new vegetable, but liked stir-fry so much in restaurants that she HAD to try it. "Suspicious" translated into boiling it until it almost dissolved, and that was not a way to bring out it's best!
Or put out strips of cold raw stems along with carrots and celery, with some kind of dip, as appetizers. I would tell guests that it was like celery, except that it tastes good.
The leaves are classic greens: boil them with anything, or when younger just steam them lightly, or when very young, they are great in salad raw. Now that baby leaves are popular and have the sexy new name "micro-greens", sowing thickly and cutting several times with a scissor or knife is a fashionable "thing" instead of just something smart gardeners do.
I would say Bok Choy has a fairly strong "green" flavor and not much if any "mustard" flavor. For that "spicy mustard", go for Mizuna or real mustard greens.
The leaves can replace spinach or collard greens in recipes, but the flavor is different.
For NO mustard flavor in VERY mild-flavored greens, consider Tyfon (Holland Greens). They were bred for a fodder crop that would not sour cow's milk. But the young leaves are tender and the plants are VERY cold-hardy and VERY productive.
For very mild salad greens, consider tatsoi. It doesn't grow very fast, but it's quite cold hardy.
Chinese cabbage is harder to grow and get heads from, but can also be good in salad when young, especially Michihli. Napa Chinese cabbage is more like Western cabbage, but more tender and sweeter.
