Mustard Cabbage

Mustard cabbage, also known as gai choy or Chinese mustard cabbage, is a leafy green vegetable in the brassica family. It has broad, slightly ruffled leaves on thick, crunchy stems, with a flavour that sits somewhere between cabbage and mustard greens — mildly peppery when raw, mellowing with cooking.

It is a staple in Chinese, Vietnamese, and Southeast Asian cooking, commonly used in stir-fries, soups, and braised dishes. In Australia, it’s readily available at Asian grocery stores and increasingly at farmers’ markets. It’s also the vegetable traditionally pickled to make the sour mustard greens used in many Chinese dishes.

Mustard cabbage can be eaten raw in salads for a peppery kick, but is most commonly cooked briefly to soften the stems while keeping a pleasant crunch.