Ingredients for life cooking and eating – Chinese Mustard Green In Snow (Brassica juncea var multiceps) | Xue Li Hong | 雪里红

The Chinese Mustard Green in Snow is a cultivar of mustard plant, a variation of the Chinese mustard.  It is so named because of its Chinese name, Xue Li Hong (雪里红), meaning red in snow.  During fall, this plant changes color to red, and in winter when it snow, people find the red foliage so striking against the white snow, they name it accordingly.

Xue Li Hong is a common vegetable used in Chinese cooking, such as making soup, used in stir-fry, and also a good choice for pickle.  It is commonly available, you should be able to find it in most Chinese grocery store.

Although I haven’t tried it, but apparently, people also used it in salad, sparsely I would say, because in raw, it’s hot.  Culturally, the Chinese do not eat raw vegetable.  Well, they don’t eat anything raw period.  So growing up, I never new Xue Li Hong actually taste spicy in raw.  Luckily I have some in my refrigerator at the time I am writing this, so I ate some raw.  It is, indeed, hot …  It is a kind mustard after all.

Cooking it will completely remove the hotness of it, so is pickling it.  The Chinese believe Xue Li Hong offers a lot of health benefit for the human body including cancer prevention, detox and even losing weight.  You can read more about it here.

-Lumaca