Small Dish of Snow Vegetable
(click to enlarge)

Snow Vegetable / Xue Cai


China - Zhejiang   -   Xue Cai
Makes:
Effort:
Sched:
DoAhead:  		 1-2/3 cups
**
7-10 days
Must		 This mild pickle and its juice are used in many recipes from the Shanghai region (Zhejiang), but "Snow Vegetable" is hard to find even in the Asian markets of Los Angeles, but it's easy to make.




1-1/4
1
#
T
Mustard Greens (1)  
Sea Salt (2)
Make   -   (30 min + 7 to 10 days)
  1. Separate the leaves of the MUSTARD GREENS and float wash. Dry well, preferably in a salad spinner. At this point I cut a "V" at the base of the leaves to remove the thick white part for use in another recipe.
  2. Wilt the Greens by one of the methods suggested in Note-3 to achieve the right balance between salt and liquid.
  3. Cut Greens crosswise into 1/2 inch strips, stems into about 3/4 inch pieces. If leaves are very wide you can make a couple lengthwise cuts before cutting crosswise. Put them in a large mixing bowl.
  4. Sprinkle with 1 Tablespoon Sea Salt and massage it in hard, as if you were kneading stiff bread dough. Massage until the salt is thoroughly incorporated and the leaves look wet as they start to exude their liquid. Let it rest for 15 minutes and then massage some more
  5. Pack Greens in a sterile container and ram them down tight so all air is excluded and their liquid covers the top of the greens (it may take an hour for there to be that much liquid). Weight it down so the leaves are completely covered (see Note-4). Cover and set aside at a cool (but not cold) room temperature.
  6. The greens are done when they have a satisfying sour-savory taste. A week is about average, but exact time will depend on room temperature. When the flavor is good, refrigerate. It will keep for about two months.
NOTES:

  1. Weight

    is for greens actually going into the recipe. The "official" green in the Shanghai region is Mizuna (xue li hong), the true "snow vegetable". It's a turnip green (B.rapa), not a mustard green (B.juncia), but it isn't reliably available in North America, and very expensive if you can find it. I use Small Gai Choy (Large Gai Choy is too stemmy), an actual mustard green easily available in Los Angeles. For the 1-1/4 pounds for this recipe I bought 3-1/2 pounds of Small Gai Choy. I cut out the thick white leaf bases for use in another recipe. Some overseas Chinese chefs, with none of these available, use radish greens. For details see our Cabbage, Mustard, Turnip & Radish Greens page, particularly the Asian Greens section.

  2. Sea Salt:

      Natural sea salt should be used for salt pickling. I emphasize "natural", because many major brands of "sea salt" are highly refined. If it doesn't seem a little moist, it's not natural. Various pundits tell you that "salt is salt, it's nearly all sodium chloride", but the Koreans, who do far more salt pickling than anyone else, maintain that some of the minor salts in sea salt are important to proper fermentation. Of course you can buy sea salt from gourmet outlets for astounding prices, but if you find a Korean market you can buy big sacks of it economically. For details see our Salt page.

  3. Wilting:

    Threading a string through the strongest points and hanging overnight indoors is recommended by Fuchsia Dunlop. She mentions that many people in China dry half a day in the sun, hung up on string or spread out on bamboo trays, but she's based in London where they don't have sun. The object here is not to get any actual dryness, but to wilt for the right balance of water and salt. For the photo specimens, I was pressed for time, so I dried them in my electric dehydrator, fan on and low temperature, for about 1 hour, until lightly wilted. It would be much faster at medium temperature, but would take more attention to prevent over drying.

  4. Pickling:

      Note that the amount of salt is fairly critical. Ideally, these greens should be packed in a small crock, covered by a fitted plate with a heavy weight on top, and a cloth covering. Another way is to use a wide mouth jar with a fair amount of headroom. a small, tightly sealed plastic bag full of water can be stuffed into the jar to hold the contents down. If none of this is possible, I have found that ramming the greens back down once or twice a day so the top layer is well washed with the brine works fine to suppress mold.

  5. Comments:

      This recipe is based on one by über expert Fuchsia Dunlop, who approves Small Gai Lan as a substitute for Zhejiang Mizuna (see Note-1).
  6. U.S. measure: t=teaspoon, T=Tablespoon, c=cup, qt=quart, oz=ounce, #=pound, cl=clove in=inch, ar=as required tt=to taste
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