Old gai lan is super bitter and tough but the good news is it’s really easy to tell which stalks are old and which are young. When picking out bunches of gai lan, look for stalks that are a deep green without an abundance of yellow leaves or flowers (gai lan starts to flower when it’s old). Gai lan is available at all Asian grocery stores and sometimes even at regular ones. Gai lan doesn’t have a season as it’s available all year round, which is probably why it’s so popular. I almost always choose to buy baby gai lan when I see it because it tends to be more tender and tasty than regular.

Sometimes you’ll see baby gai lan called mini gai lan or gai lan junior. Regular gai lan is larger, older, and a bit more tough. There are two types of gai lan: regular and baby. Gai lan is truly one of the most popular Chinese vegetable dishes. If you’ve had broccolini, it’s very similar because broccolini is a hybrid between broccoli and gai lan. It belongs to the cabbage group and tastes kind of like broccoli. Gai lan, kai lan, Chinese broccoli, or Chinese kale, is a leafy green vegetable with thickish stems and small florets. Like broccoli it’s incredibly versatile and hearty – you can basically substitute it anywhere you have broccoli or kale. It’s most often stir fried with garlic or quickly blanched and served with oyster sauce. Most home style Chinese meals consist of two or three dishes served with rice and almost always one of the vegetables dishes will inevitably be gai lan. As a Chinese person it’s essentially an everyday vegetable.

Broccoli beat