Last time I introduced olive vegetable via a recently favorite Chinese olive vegetable fried rice. Then I found that I am fall in love with this small but delicious side ingredients.
Firstly, Chinese olive vegetable is not common olive fruit.
What’s Chinese olive vegetable (橄榄菜)
Chinese olive vegetable (橄榄菜) is a a specialty of Teochew (or chao zhou, 潮州) cuisine, a branch of Chinese cuisine. The name is quite misunderstanding. It is not pickled olive fruit but cooked mustard with olive fruit, soy sauce and oil. Though not fermented, the long cooking time gives the oil vegetable a very distinctive, strong savory flavor.
The background story about Chinese olive vegetable says that one lady found the young and immature Chinese White Olive (青橄榄) dropping to the ground. She picked them up and place in their pot cooking mustard green. Then this “olive vegetable “was created. I get lots of feedbacks asking about how to find Chinese olive vegetable. You can search it in Asian stores or check this link and get it from amazon.
In addition to this simple stir-frying with green vegetables, Chinese olive vegetable can be also used in soups, stews and this vegetarian fried rice. With a very small portion, it can bring a unique aromatic to the entire dish. I am quite upset about writing less famous and self creations on the blog since they usually get very less attention. Sometimes, I feel frustrated that some of the best ever dishes are not valued and hard to get feedback. However, I still want to share my daily cooking with very basic and simple ingredients. Food can be simple and delicious too.
Steps
- 250 g green beans cut into long pieces
- 2 tbsp. Chinese olive vegetable
- 2 tbsp. vegetable cooking oil
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- a small pinch of salt
-
Load a pot with enough water and bring it to a boiling. Add a small pinch of salt and 1/4 tsp. vegetable cooking oil and cook the green beans for 2-3 minutes. Transfer out and drain.
-
Heat cooking oil in wok and fry garlic until aromatic. Add green beans in, fry for another 2 minutes. Add Chinese olive vegetable, mix well. Add a small pinch of salt if necessary. But taste before adding the salt since Chinese olive vegetable is quite salty.
I read your blog all the time, but I never comment! Sorry to hear that you are frustrated with the lack of feedback, and thank you for posting traditional and simple dishes like this one! It may not get a lot of obvious interest, but I think people still appreciate it and can learn how elegant Chinese cooking can be. Thank you!
Thank you David. You are so kind!
I never heard of Chinese olive vegetable. It sounds very intriguing. I bet it goes really well with other vegetable stir-fries. Since it has mustard in it, can you use to flavor meat dishes?
I totally understand your frustration. But please keep your passion on introducing the traditional Chinese dishes. I learn a lot from your blog.
Holly,
This is a very magic ingredient with very unique flavor. No strong mustard flavor after long time simmering. But it has some flavor similar to soy sauce pickled dishes (酱菜 in Chinese). Sure you can use it to flavor meat dishes. I will recommend you frying it with minced pork to make a top for noodles.
Lastly, thanks so much for your encouragement.
I love this ingredient and the first time i had it was in my town Cologne “great Wall Restaurant” .. it was such an unique flavor and it took me quite long to find out how people call it. If you ever make more recipes with this ingredient i would be very happy .. i really love it but rice and beans is all i do with it so far.
Kate,
You can try to add it in soups like noodle soups or vegetable soups next time. It is really so good.
this ingredient reminds me somehow of lao gan ma crunchy chili oil.. it makes dishes so much better and has an unique flavor.. at least in germany its pretty unique 🙂
Yes, similar. They all are magic ingredients.
I was intrigued by the olive vegetable ingredient after reading about your scrumptious olive vegetable fried rice creation. I’ve had it before as a side dish for congee but I didn’t know that it could be cooked into vegetables and rice in the ways you have done. So clever! Well, I’m off to the Chinese grocery store to buy some and try every dish on your blog that uses it 🙂
yes, I love that fried rice version. Currently I plan to make a recipe collection showing how many ways you can use this olive vegetable. Next time, it should be something like pancakes.
Hi Elaine,
of course a lot of people come to your site just using searching for well known Chinese recipes. And I think you have any reason to be proud of the fact that your blog is essentially the number one English language resource for Sichuan if not Chinese cooking in general on the whole Internet.
Now based on my experience it really is a big step from “I’m wan’t to try this mapo tofo I ate at the Chinese restaurant” to “I really would like to know how Chinese cooking works”. For me, It involved essentially changing my whole pantry and learning a lot every day about the ingredients you use. Just simple things like having more than one kind of soy sauce, some sesame oil or ginger in store at any time. I just didn’t have that a couple of years ago.
Apart from the ingredients I think the difference in composing a whole meal is a really big hurdle. It’s just so different from European style cooking and I still have trouble choosing fitting soups and side dishes.
I think there would be some ways to bring more attention to your own creations which are in my opinion not ignored by people because they don’t like them, but because they just don’t know when to make them.
Firstly based on the ingredients like with this one. Once people have bought for example some black beans or doubanjiang or olive vegetable for one of the “famous” recipes hint them to what else they can do with them.
Secondly, mention fitting side dishes and soups more in the recipes that get a lot of visitors. As I mentioned a couple of times, the whole side dish, soup thing is very uncommon in a lot of parts of the world. So just add some links to those you think make the best combination for any given recipe.
Thirdly, make the recipes you are fond of more visible. The fact that you get so many visitors for the classic recipes is surely a sign that people trust you. After all there are a lot of recipes for those on the Internet. But coming your site we only get an impression of which recipes your visitors really like. There is no “Rating” by you of which ones you like the best.
Sorry for such a long comment, but it really made me sad to read that you were unhappy with the reception of your site into which you have put so much effort. For me it is the most valuable source of recipes, second only to the hand written collection of my favorite recipes my mom gave me when I moved out from home some twenty years ago.
Hi Elaine,
After a lot of searching I found the olive vegetable in the Chinese grocery store. I know the taste of European olives and olive oil, and have tried several varieties of preserved mustard greens. So I expected a very intense and salty somewhat stingy taste. But it was on the contrary very mild and had a deep soothing flavour. I loved it from the first bite.
Thank’s a lot for introducing it. I’d really like to see more recipes using this.
Hey, don’t ever be concerned about the lack of feedback. Do you ever read feedback? On most sites, much of it appears to be written by morons. People that want to know if you can use regular salt instead of kosher salt, or people that say the recipe is too spicy or not spicy enough. Or other some such nonsense that has nothing to do with anything. Few have any value at all. Be glad you get thoughtful comments from your friends.
Look at the number of hits your website gets, that’s a better indication of how valuable your product is.
You do a fine job and I really enjoy exploring your site. I am grateful for your efforts.
Thanks you, Fish. Your comment is so warm and really gives me some confidences about my content. Thanks again.
I read your blog every week, and though I do not cook too often, (I live in Vancouver, Canada which has the best Asian restaurants!), I always find your site very useful with fresh recipe for when I do cook. Your photos are gorgeous, mouth watering! Kudos, keep it up!
Thanks Gerard!
Hi! PLEASE do not change a thing about your blog! Sometimes it is difficult to find the ingredients or we just don’t have time in a day to search out certain ingredients that you use or recommend. Please don’t feel we do not appreciate these recipes!!! WE DO!!! Also a lot of the time the ingredients are new to Americans and there is a certain learning curve to be considered. While I am trying to learn all sorts of Asian cooking, if I change from Chinese to Korean, for example, I am continually hearing names which are completely strange to me. Please do not change anything. Most of your readers are learning and we need you! Thank you.
Thanks Linda. This is such an encouraging comment which will definitely give me energy of all future recipes. Thanks a lot. I am so glad to read your comment.
Thank you Linda, you manged to put my thoughts in a lot less words than I did 🙂
I enjoy reading your recipes. I hope all is well with you!
Thank you Rod. You are so kind.
I am so excited to try this dish and will let you know how it turned out. Thank you for sharing your creations with the world!
Thank you. I really hope you can love this one.