Chinese Kale

Kai-lan, also known as Chinese broccoli or Chinese kale, is a slightly bitter leaf vegetable featuring thick, flat, glossy blue-green leaves with thick stems and a small number of tiny, almost vestigial flower heads similar to those of broccoli. As the Alboglabra group of Brassica oleracea, kai-lan is of the same species of plant as broccoli and kale. Its flavor is very similar to that of broccoli, though not identical, being a bit sweeter.

Kai-lan is eaten widely in Chinese cuisine, and especially in Cantonese cuisine. Common preparations include kai-lan stir-fried with ginger and garlic, and boiled or steamed and served with oyster sauce. Unlike broccoli, where only the flowering parts are normally eaten, with kai-lan the leaves and stems are eaten as well, either whole or sliced into bits the proper size and shape to be eaten with chopsticks. It is also common in Vietnamese cuisine.

The name kai-lan and its American version, gai-lan, come from Cantonese. Although the character 芥 is usually read jiè, the name of the vegetable can be read either gàilán or jièlán in Mandarin.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Chinese Kale".