What is this plant my husband picked out for dinner? I’m Korean and my husband is Cantonese and neither of us recognize it. It was labeled “Chinese spinach,” but when I searched that online, several different vegetables popped up, none of which was this plant.
Its leaves are relatively thick and waxy, almost like a succulent, and exuded sticky slime like okra when cut. I stir-fried it on high heat with garlic and it ended up with a texture similar to seaweed when cooked, and just a general mildly vegetable taste.
The ruler in the first picture is in inches.
by pettypeniswrinkle
10 Comments
My partner is Vietnamese and says it’s Malabar spinach.
They eat it with crab soup.
It’s also called malabar spinach. It’s a tropical vine that is used similarly to spinach, but yeah it’s slimier. Has pretty similar nutrition to regular spinach I believe
Malabar spinach looks like
It’s better stir-fried, so is regular spinach.
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Also called Calaloo or Bhaji in the Caribbean. Great as a side dish by itself, stewed with protein like chicken, beef or shrimp. Delish.
I grew this as a houseplant and it worked really well! Every few months I was able to harvest a few stems to use in a dish, not much but really cool to be able to use a houseplant like that.
They do need a lot of climbing space though
Kang kung, Indonesian
Malabar spinach
Definitely malabar