A CHINESE VEGETABLE POTPOURRI - Growing Chinese Vegetables in Your Own Backyard - page 100

MATURE ROOTS, COOKED . The mature root should be peeled, soaked for 5 to 10
minutes in salted water or parboiled for 3 minutes (to get rid of the slight bitterness),
then cooked any way you please. Many recipes don't call for scalding before cooking,
so you can try omitting this step and see if the results are satisfactory. You may not feel
it is worth the trouble. Here are some common ways of preparing it:
• As an interesting addition to baked beans of all kinds.
• Use it to add character to a bland broth.
• Blanch, cool, and shred, then cook in butter for about 10 minutes, then combine
with 2 tablespoons of vinegar and cook, covered, for another 10 minutes over
low heat; sprinkle with parsley and serve hot.
PICKLED . In Japan, both the stems and the roots are pickled. You can buy pickled bur-
dock roots in an Asian grocery store if you want to taste them before making your own.
Somehow the pickling seems to make the taste hotter, so you end up with an agreeably
spicy condiment that does wonders for a platter of cold meats on a hot summer day.
Daylily
J IN Z HEN C AI , G UM J UM
Hemerocallis fulva
(color photo, page xiii)
The daylily owes its name to flowers that last only for a single day. The plants bloom so
profusely that many people don't realize this. These plants produce an enormous num-
ber of buds, and the Chinese (who never waste anything edible) eat daylily buds fresh
and dry them for a special out-of-season treat.