Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Herb guide to Chinese Chives along with all the Chinese Chives containing recipes presented on this site, with 4 recipes in total.

e This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Cornish recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Chinese Chives as a major herb flavouring.

Allium tuberosum or Chinese Chives also known as: garlic chives, Oriental garlic, Asian chives and Chinese leek, is a bulbous perennial herb in the Allium (onion) family native to the Chinese province of Shanxi, and cultivated and naturalized elsewhere in Asia and around the world.

Allium tuberosum is a rhizomatous, clump-forming perennial plant growing from a small, elongated bulb (about 10 mm; 13⁄32 inch, across) that is tough and fibrous. Unlike either onion or garlic, it has strap-shaped leaves with triangular bases, about 1.5 to 8mm wide. It produces many white flowers in a round cluster (umbel) on stalks 25 to 60cm tall. It grows in slowly expanding perennial clumps, but also readily sprouts from seed. In warmer areas (USDA zone 8 and warmer), garlic chives may remain green all year round. In cold areas (USDA zones 7 to 4b), leaves and stalks completely die back to the ground, and re-sprout from roots or rhizomes in the spring.

The flavour is more similar to garlic than to other garlic species/cultivars and it's this flavour profile that makes the plants prised, particularly in salads and in conjunction with eggs. Garlic chives have been widely cultivated for centuries in East Asia for their culinary value. The flat leaves, the stalks, and immature, unopened flower buds are used as flavouring. Another form is "blanched" by regrowing after cutting under cover to produce white-yellow leaves and a subtler flavour.

In Manipur and other northeastern states of India, it is grown and used as a substitute for garlic and onion in cooking and is known as maroi nakuppi in Manipuri. In Japan, where the plant is known as nira, it is used both for its garlic-like flavor and its sweetness, in miso soups and salads, stir-fries with eggs, and Japanese dishes such as gyōza dumplings and fried liver. Known as buchu (부추), garlic chives are widely used in Korean cuisine. They can be eaten fresh as namul, pickled as kimchi and jangajji, and pan-fried in buchimgae (pancake). they are also one of the most common herbs served with gukbap (soup with rice), as well as a common ingredient in mandu (dumplings).

The flowers, leaves, bulbs and root and an oil expressed from the seeds are all edible. The rather small bulbs are about 10mm in diameter and are produced in clusters on a short rhizome. Flowers and flower buds are typically used raw or cooked. They make a delicious flavouring and pretty garnish for the autumn salad bowl. The roots can be eaten raw or cooked. An edible oil is obtained from the seeds.