Pork with Chinese Yellow Chives

Chives - let's talk about them. How many kinds of chives can you name? Is it one - the tiny ones that you buy in little plastic packs and put on baked potatoes? If so, then congratulations - you are officially an ignorant American, like me! As it turns out, there are multiple varieties of chives, and while surfing the internet I came across this recipe that looked like it would help me further unravel the Mystery of the Unnamed Produce that I usually encounter at the asian grocery store. My journey into madness learning about garlic chives spanned multiple weeks and was very informative, so I'd like to share, in the hopes that you, the hungry reader, can better jump into the world of proper produce selection.

These are the correct chives - gau choy (right), and gau wong (left)

First of all, I had to make this recipe twice. I was so excited about the prospect of buying "asian chives" (which isn't really a thing, they're actually called "garlic chives": Allium tuberosum) instead of American chives (which I will refer to as baked potato chives, or BP for short: Allium schoenoprasum), that I grabbed the first thing that looked like chives at the asian store and got the heck out of there. This led to a disappointing, bland dish, which gave me pause to do a bit of digging and discover that there are actually 3 kinds of Chinese / garlic chives you can get from the asian grocery store, all of which are from the same plant, and all are about 12 - 18" long packs of thin-stemmed green (or yellow) things:

1. Flowering chives (gau choy fa). These have a rounded base and the purple / green buds at the top, and look like a larger version of BP chives. Apparently they have much less flavor than the others.
2. Standard garlic chives (gau choy, kow choi, jiu cai, nira) are broad, flat leaves that are much more delicate than the flowering variety, and are much more edible as a plant when stir-fried quickly. Both of these have a very pronounced garlic flavor, though these are almost similar to ramps in their consistency.
3. Yellow chives (gau wong, jiu huang, kow won, "albino chives") are like white asparagus - grown without sunlight by heaping dirt on them, they don't develop chlorophyll, so they never turn green. They also are milder in flavor, and taste more like onions than potent garlic. They're also significantly more expensive - $15 / pound near me!

Let's look the other way about how I completely ignored the recipe the first time I made this, purchasing gau choy fa and hoping for magic, when all I ended up with was a plate of pork and tree stems. Instead, we'll focus on the second version of this dish, which ended up being a culinary rockstar - packed with garlic flavor and vibrant colors, yet inherently simple in its construction and very authentic in its rustic components.

These are flowering garlic chives. Not at all the correct chives, these were woody and bland

The incorrect version looks decent, but it's not what the recipe intended

Brown Rice Salad with Crunchy Sprouts and Seeds

This recipe serves to highlight just how bad my picture-taking skills are.  While this was meant to be one of my flagship recipes, because it's so unique, healthy, and delicious, my pictures make this look a bit less than exciting.  And there was no opportunity to go back for another pass, because this disappeared within about a day, and with complete disregard for you, the viewing public.  Oh well, use your imagination of putting this on a bed of lettuce or something.

I found this recipe in a magazine with a number of other salads devoted to interesting grains.  This one was a natural first step, because I already had some cooked brown rice, a bunch of chives in need of a home, zucchini from the farmer's market, and a mountain of sprouts from my most recent sprout-growing adventures.  There really wasn't any excuse NOT to make this dish, and I'm glad I backed myself into this tasty corner.

Brown Rice Salad with Crunchy Sprouts and Seeds
Modified slightly from Bon Appétit, June 2012

• 3/4 cup (packed) chopped fresh chives
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1.5 tablespoons (or more) fresh lemon juice
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt plus more
• 1 1/2 cups mixed dried sprouted legumes (such as mung beans and lentils)
• 1 1/2 cups grated zucchini, lightly squeezed to remove liquid
• 1/2 cup cooked brown rice
• 2 scallions, thinly sliced
• 1/3 cup toasted salted sunflower seeds
• 1/3 cup toasted salted shelled pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
• 1/3 cup coarsely chopped roasted unsalted almonds
• Freshly ground black pepper

First, make the chive vinaigrette.  Purée chives, oil, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, and 1 teaspoon salt in a food processor until smooth. Strain chive vinaigrette through a fine-mesh sieve into a small bowl.

Get the chives, and puree them with olive oil, lemon juice, and salt to make a tasty vinaigrette dressing for this

If you're really worried about the bacterial content of your sprouts (and you probably shouldn't be if you made your own), cook them in a large pot of lightly salted boiling water until just tender, about 5 minutes, which I think is a terrible idea. But assuming you do, after cooking remove them from the heat and let stand, covered, for 3 minutes.  Rinse under cool water and drain them.  Or, my more preferred method - do nothing.  Just throw the sprouts in raw.  They will be much healthier and more delicious that way anyway.

Okay, ready?  Toss everything together.  That's it.  Season to taste with salt, pepper, and more lemon juice, if desired.