A Hubei home-style stir-fry pairing Wuhan's prized purple flowering choy with cured pork. Hongshan cai-tai — the red-purple flowering stems of a winter brassica grown around Hongshan in Wuhan, a geographical-indication vegetable — is snapped into finger-lengths and stir-fried hot and fast with slices of salt-cured, air-dried pork. The choy stays crisp, juicy, and sweet, turning a deeper jewel-purple in the heat, while the lean of the cured pork tints translucent and the fat melts into the stems. Lightly salted and barely sauced, it lets the vegetable's clean sweetness and the smoky-savoury pork carry the plate; many Hubei people abroad call it their 'taste of home.'
Hongshan cai-tai grows around the Hongshan pagoda district of Wuhan, in the old Wuchang heartland, and is long reckoned one of the city's two great native flavours alongside the Wuchang fish. It is the red-purple flowering choy that pre-modern writers also called 'purple song' (紫菘), and stories that make it a Tang-dynasty delicacy or a tribute vegetable sent to the imperial court — the 'golden-hall jade vegetable' the Empress Dowager Cixi is said to have loved — run through the local accounts, but these are traditional lore rather than firmly documented, so the safe statement is only that it is a famous old Wuhan vegetable. What is on record is recent: in 2005 the vegetable was approved for national geographical-indication product protection under the name Hongshan cai-tai, and its core growing ground around Hongshan is protected farmland. Pairing the choy with home-cured pork is the standard Hubei winter way to cook it, since both come into their own in the cold months.
First bite is a wet, crunchy snap — the stem breaks cleanly and floods with a clean, faintly sweet juice, almost like a tender broccoli stalk but more delicate and grassy, with no fibre to chew through. Against it the cured pork is dense and chewy, deeply savoury and a little smoky, its melted fat coating each piece of choy so the sweetness and the salt-cure play off each other. Eaten hot, the contrast is sharpest: cool-crisp vegetable, warm rich pork. Done well, the stems stay emerald-purple and squeaky-crisp with the pork's fat just glossing them; done badly, the choy is over-fried into khaki limpness and weeps water, or the cured pork is left hard, raw-salty, and unrendered.
This dish lives or dies on high heat and short time. The flowering stems are crisp because their cells are turgid — full of water under pressure inside intact walls; brief, fierce stir-frying heats them just enough to brighten the purple anthocyanin pigment and drive off the raw note while the cells stay plump and snap-crisp. Over-cook them and the cell walls rupture and collapse, the water floods out, and the stems go limp and dull. The cured pork is sliced thin and rendered first so its hard, salt-firmed fat melts and coats the wok, both seasoning the oil and lubricating the choy; the fat carries the pork's concentrated, lightly fermented savour, and because the pork is already salty the dish needs almost no added salt. Adding the choy only at the end, tossing fast, and serving at once keeps the vegetable on the right side of crisp.
Variations
The cured-pork pairing is the classic, but the same choy is also simply stir-fried on its own with nothing but oil, salt, and a little garlic — many locals insist the plain version best shows its sweetness — or quick-fried with dried chilli, or with smoked dried tofu instead of pork. The pork itself varies by household between salt-cured air-dried lap-yuk and a smokier version; some add a few slices of ginger or a splash of rice wine to lift the cure. Beyond the protected Hongshan ground the broader red flowering choy of Hubei is cooked the same way, though connoisseurs hold the genuine Hongshan stems, grown on the old lake-bed soil, to be sweeter and more tender than choy from elsewhere.
On the Palate
Where Hongshan Purple Choy Stir-Fried with Cured Pork sits in the Chinese flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4How it's made
7 steps · 12 min active + 8 min waiting
- 16 min
Snap the Hongshan purple choy by hand into finger-length pieces, breaking off and discarding any tough fibrous ends; split thick stems lengthwise and rinse.
- 25 min
Slice the cured pork thin; if it is very firm or salty, steam or blanch it briefly to soften and to shed excess salt, then pat dry.
- 34 min
Heat a dry wok, add the cured pork, and stir-fry over medium heat until the fat turns translucent and renders out and the lean edges crisp.
Watch outRender the cured pork in a dry wok until the fat turns translucent and the lean edges crisp — that fat seasons the oil and coats the choy.
- 41 min
Push the pork aside, add the garlic and a little ginger to the rendered fat, and let them sizzle fragrant.
- 52 min
Turn the heat to high, tip in the choy, and stir-fry fast so it sears in the hot fat without weeping.
Watch outTurn the heat to high and stir-fry the choy fast so it sears without weeping — slow heat bursts the cells and the stems go limp and dull.
- 62 min
Season with a splash of rice wine and only a little salt if needed (the pork is already salty), tossing until the stems are just crisp-tender and a vivid purple.
Watch outPull it while the stems are just crisp-tender and vividly purple — a moment longer and they collapse.
- 71 min
Dish out at once while the choy is still crisp and glossy.
