Teczcape-An Escape to Food

As part of the mustard family, mizuna is subtly bitter and peppery. The addition of sweet gojiberries round up this stir-fry very well.


Stir-Fry Garlic Mizuna with Gojiberry 枸杞蒜炒水菜
The recipe of Stir-Fry Mizuna with Garlic can be found here. To plump up the gojiberries before use, you can either soak in water or in cooking wine (e.g. Shaoxing wine, Japanese sake) for 10-15minutes. For soups or stir-fries, add the wine-infused gojiberries towards the end of cooking; at the same time, gently splash the "gojiberries-infused wine" alongside the walls of the pan/wok and as the wine-vapor aroma exudes, it makes the stir-fry more fragrant.

Similar to any other leafy greens such as kale and Bok Choy, it is recommended to add the stems first to saute before adding the leaves because the stems usually take longer to cook.

Have you tried Mizuna 水菜 (Shui Cai) also known as Japanese mustard? Other than appearing as one of salad-greens components found in some grocery stores' salad boxes, this green vegetable can also be seen, sold on its own, as a whole bunch in some Japanese grocery stores e.g. Mitsuwa (San Jose location)


Japanese mustard greens are rich in the fat-soluble vitamins A and K, and water-soluble vitamin C. As part of the cruciferous vegetable family, which also includes kale, broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts, it also offers similar cancer-fighting compounds. To extract maximum cancer-protection benefits, it is often best to consume such vegetables in their raw form e.g. in salads and juices.

However when a vegetable reaches the hands of a cook who is often into Chinese-style cooking, stir-frying jumps right in, in preference to salads; but a quick saute it will be, so as not to lose much of the nutrition.

Mizuna can be a great addition to salads as it has a subtle peppery flavor and yet as a mustard green, not as pungent as the Chinese mustard.