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Malabar spinach 蠶菜 /
Slippery veggie 潺菜 |
You might have seen this vegetable at wet
markets in Hong Kong. It is currently available (in early spring) but not every
stall is selling it.
It is called “slippery vegetable” or saa`hn
choi 潺菜 in Cantonese. Some people called it “Malabar spinach” or “Ceylon
spinach” (chaa`hm-choi
in Cantonese - 蠶菜 means wormwood-vegetable). The scientific name is Basella Alba
and it belongs to the basellaceae family (group of flowering plants).
I recently learnt from my Facebook friends (from
Taiwan) that it was called “皇帝菜” wo`hng-dai-choi (emperor-vegetable) in
Taiwan, which is definitely more elegant than “slippery” vegetable, right? However,
in PRC, 皇帝菜 refers to another vegetable called Garland Chrysanthemum (or tu`hng-hou1
in Cantonese 茼蒿).
