Homemade Salted Mustard Greens (雪菜/雪裡紅)

Salted mustard greens (雪菜/雪裡紅) are very popular in stir-fry with meats, tofu and noodle soup in traditional Chinese cooking. I often keep some in my fridge, and throw a bit of it whenever I like to enhance the flavour in my Chinese dishes, like green beans stir fry, shredded pork rice noodle soup.

It’s pretty easy to make salted mustard greens at home, simply add a small amount of salt. After a few days, you can enjoy the aromatic pickled vegetables. Compared with those canned ones, you're 100% sure it's healthy without any preservatives at all.

Homemade Salted Mustard Greens (Printable recipe)

Ingredients:

• 800gm mustard greens, available at Asian grocery stores
• 2 tbsp sea salt (rock salt)

Method:

1. Rinse mustard greens thoroughly. Drain well. If there’s still some water left and the mustard greens still wet, it’s fine.
2. Place mustard greens in single layer one by one, then rub some salt evenly onto the vegetables from stem to leaves. Rest in room temperature for about 30 minutes, rub the vegetable again. Repeat this process for three times. Cover and chill in fridge. Some water will release in the process. After two to three days, you’ll get aromatic, healthy salted mustard greens. It can be kept in fridge for up to one week.

Notes:

• If you don’t have a big glass container, you might use a plastic bag to preserve the mustard greens.
• After marinated with salt, the vegetables would turn soft in texture, fresh green in colour and release some water. You might keep the water as it is or discard it. Beware that any part of the vegetable that doesn’t touch with salt properly, it might turn yellow. So you might want to rub salt evenly onto the surface of vegetables, and combine them very well to get the best results.
• When you’re ready to cook, soak the salted mustard greens in water for 20 minutes. Rinse with water three times and squeeze out excess water. Then you can cut them into smaller pieces and cook with other ingredients.