A Cooks Guide to Chinese Vegetables

The purpose of this book is to provide practical information for someone buying fresh produce in a Chinese or Asian market.

The seasonal variety of roots, shoots, greens and melons can be fascinating but ultimately daunting. What is it? How do I choose a good one? Should it be green or yellow, soft or hard? Peeled or left whole? And then, how to serve it? Is that the flavour it should have, or have I done something wrong? The following pages attempt to answer these questions clearly and concisely. They also attempt to describe how the Chinese prepare vegetables that we consider “Western”. Vegetables do not, after all, owe allegiance to any one nation or culture; preparing the vegetable you know in ways you hadn’t though of can be an adventure too.