Sat, Sep 29, 2018 page13

• A whiter shade of pale

  Garlic chives are the white asparagus of Chinese cuisine, sheltered, cossetted, fragile and utterly delicious

  • By Ian Bartholomew / Contributing reporter
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  Vegetables that have grown up in a sunlight deprived environment often look anemic and unattractive. But then, sometimes this effect is cultivated, with considerable effort, and the products reflect this by commanding high prices. The most well known example in the western culinary tradition is the short, much anticipated season for white asparagus (Taipei Times, June 9, 2018). Within the Chinese tradition, this role is taken by white garlic-chives, which are just now coming into season. Like white asparagus, they require the gentlest of handling, and the aim is to enjoy their delicate flavor.

  Garlic chives should not be confused with onion chives, as they are entirely different in almost every respect. They appear similar in their delicate stems, but their flavor, as the name suggests, is closer to garlic than onion, though they are part of the onion family. Their scientific name, allium tuberosum, is indicative of their oniony origins and they belong to the family Liliaceae, but they are invariably cultivated for their leaves and flowers.

  Unlike onions, the bulb of the garlic chive is unappealingly fibrous and not suitable for the dinner table. Their leaves are flat, almost grass-like, rather than the hollow stems of onion-chives or scallions. They are a very attractive plant with delicate flowers, and in the west are probably more known for their appeal as ornamental plants than as part of the vegetable larder.

  

  Very much one of the “less is more” vegetables, white garlic chives benefit from minimal preparation.

  Photo: Ian Bartholomew

  In the east, certainly in the Chinese culinary tradition, garlic-chives are an important player, and appear in a number of classic dishes, which they define at different periods of their growth cycle. Garlic chives are most often seen as a grassy vegetable sold as young shoots or an older, slightly more robust, growth. They are cheap and pack a flavor punch and feature in a wide range of basic home dishes, the most ubiquitous being their inclusion in a strongly flavored omelet (韭菜煎蛋) or as the dominant part of pork dumplings.

  Garlic-chives are also sold when they are beginning to bud, when the stems have become firmer and have a flower pod at the tip. This iteration of the garlic chive is most closely associated with the classic dish of garlic chives with pork, black bean and dried tofu that is called colloquially Fried Fly Heads (蒼蠅頭), a reference to the miniature pods that might, with a rigorous stretch of the imagination, be described as having an appearance, along with the granulated minced pork, of a dismembered fly. It tastes much better than the name sounds, or indeed better than the dish usually looks.

  The most expensive version of garlic-chives is the white version, in which the roots of harvested garlic chives are regrown after initial harvest under black cloth, which deprives the new shoots of sunlight. The leafy growth emerges as a pale yellowish grass about 10cm to 15cm in length. Their flavor is much more subtle than that of the greener growths, and they generally sell for almost double the price, reflecting the increased labor of creating this more delicate variety.

  

  Grown under black cloth to prevent photosynthesis, white garlic chives are a pallid yellow and white, but this in no way detracts from their flavor.

  Photo: Ian Bartholomew

  It should be noted that the more attractive flavor does not improve the nutritional properties of the white garlic chive, which are recognized as being inferior in vitamin and mineral content to the more robust green varieties. But with food, it is all about taste and complexity of cultivation, and white garlic chives have been celebrated for centuries as one of the highlights of Chinese cuisine — so much so that during the Ching dynasty it was sometimes called “tribute garlic” (貢韭), as it was offered up to the emperor as one of the outstanding products of Chinese agriculture. One of the key aspects to its appeal is that the lack of photosynthesis retards the development of fiber in the grassy chive leaf, making it remarkably tender and requiring minimal cooking.

  Most famously, white garlic chives are used in the dish of swamp eel with garlic chives (鱔魚韭黃), a delicacy that should be tried, but is now not readily available. It has become something of a specialty dish due to the need to source the fresh swamp eel, a species that was once common in rice fields but are now only occasionally available in traditional markets. It is a dish that requires good ingredients and a light touch and if possible should be ordered at establishments that do the dish as a specialty. This is one of those unexpected mixtures that somehow manages to work spectacularly well.

  For those who do not appreciate garlic, it should be mentioned that garlic-chives don’t have the powerful garlic smell that some people find objectionable and so is suited to more refined menus.

  Garlic chives are overall a great vegetable to add to your repertoire, and even this pale and overly cultivated variety should not be ignored, as it has a long and honorable history of providing a unique dimension to the Chinese culinary arts.

  Stir-fried chicken with white garlic chives

  Recipe

  (serves two)

  Like many really delicate ingredients, white garlic chives require the absolute minimum of preparation. Rather like white asparagus, which they resemble in their method of cultivation, they have been painstakingly grown to have a very delicate flavor, so in almost all cases, the less you do with them the better. Even in this simplest of recipes, the ginger should be used sparingly, and chicken breast, with its relatively bland taste, is used largely to foreground the flavor of the chives (pork is often used). That said, use of fresh or high quality snap-frozen organic or free-range chicken does make a difference in this dish, in which flavors are so subtle. I have made this dish with cheap supermarket chicken breast, and you can almost taste the hen house.

  Ingredients

  1 bunch garlic chives (about 200g)

  1 skinless chicken breast, diced (about 200g)

  1 small nub ginger

  2 teaspoon soy

  1 tablespoons vegetable oil

  1 teaspoon dark sesame oil

  1 tablespoon rice wine

  half a teaspoon white pepper

  half a tomato

  half a cucumber

  Directions

  1. Marinate the chicken breast in a mixture of soy, white pepper and sesame oil for about 10 minutes.

  2. Cut the chives into 3cm sections and set aside. Remove the seeds from the tomato and cut into small cubes. Dice the cucumber.

  3. Slice the ginger thinly. Heat the vegetable oil and over low heat fry until fragrant.

  4. Add the chicken and quickly toss in the ginger-infused oil.

  5. Add the garlic chives and toss. Add the rice wine. Turn off heat and add a splash more of soy to season.

  6. Mix in the tomato and cucumber and serve immediately.

  Ian Bartholomew runs Ian’s Table, a small guesthouse in Hualien. He has lived in Taiwan for many years writing about the food scene and has decided that until you look at farming, you know nothing about the food you eat.

  He can be contacted at Hualien202@gmail.com.
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