Crop of the Week: Bok choy

  Bok choy is a non-heading cabbage with an erect spiral of dark green leaves and thick white/light green petioles (both the green leaves and white petioles are eaten). There are a number of varieties.

  Bok choy acreage in the Yuma area is minimal, roughly 200 acres.

  Bok choy, also called Chinese cabbage, has been cultivated for more than 6,000 years in China. Seeds have been found in jars in the excavated New Stone Age settlement of Banpo.

  Bok choy is popular in the Philippines, where large numbers of Chinese immigrated after Spain's conquest of the islands in the 1500s. Bok choy or pak kwahng toong also appears in Thai recipes.

  Although bok choy was introduced to Europe in the 1800s and is now readily available in supermarkets throughout North America, other cuisines have been slow to embrace it. You're unlikely to see a piece of bok choy enlivening your Greek or Italian salad. Ditto for ordering bok choy soups or salads at the local fast-food restaurant.

  Bok choy can be stir-fried, boiled, steamed, used in soups, noodle and meat dishes, salads for young leaves and pickling for larger coarser leaves. Ginger, hoisen sauce and soy sauce are great bok choy flavor enhancers. The raw stalks make a great snack. With its sweet flavor and crisp texture, bok choy works well as a substitute for cabbage in other dishes.

  When cooked, bok choy has only 20 calories but 144 percent of daily requirements of vitamin A and 74 percent of vitamin C. It also is a good source of various minerals such as calcium, magnesium, potassium as well as folate.

  Don't cook cabbage, including bok choy, in an aluminum pot as it causes a chemical reaction and alters its color and flavor.

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Source: Kurt Nolte is an agriculture agent and Yuma County Cooperative Extension director. He can be reached at knolte@cals.arizona.edu or 726-3904.