Description
Allium tuberosum, or the Japanese name nira, is a vegetable related to onion. The Chinese name for the species is variously adapted and transliterated as cuchay, jiucai, kucai, kuchay, or kutsay in Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. In Manipur and other northeatern states of India, it is grown and used as a substitute to garlic and onion in cooking and is known as “maroi nakupi” It is also sometimes called “green nira grass” where “nira” is Romanization of the Japanese word “韮” which means garlic chives. The plant has a distinctive growth habit with strap-shaped leaves unlike either onion or garlic, and straight thin white-flowering stalks that are much taller than the leaves. The flavor is more like garlic than chives.It grows in slowly expanding perennial clumps, but also readily sprouts from seed. In warmer areas, garlic chives may remain green all year round. In cold climates, leaves and stalks will completely die back to the ground, and re-sprout from its roots or rhizomes in the spring.
Both leaves and the stalks and immature, unopened flower buds are used as a flavoring in a similar way to chives, scallions or garlic and are used as a stir fry ingredient. In China, they are often used to make dumplings with a combination of egg, shrimp and pork. They are a common ingredient in Chinese jiaozi dumplings and the Japanese and Korean equivalents. The flowers may also be used as a spice. In Vietnam, the leaves of garlic chives are cut up into short pieces and used as the only vegetable in a broth with sliced pork kidneys.
A Chinese flat-bread similar to the scallion pancake may be made with garlic chives instead of scallions; such a pancake is called a jiucai bing or jiucai you bing. Garlic chives are also one of the main ingredients used with Yi mein dishes.
Garlic chives are widely used in Korean cuisine, most notably in dishes such as buchukimchi (부추김치, garlic chive kimchi), buchujeon (부추전, garlic chive pancakes), or jaecheopguk (a guk, or clear soup, made with garlic chives and Asian clams).
In Nepal, cooks fry a curried vegetable dish of potatoes and A. tuberosum known as dunduko sag
Packet includes approximately 50+ seeds.
Nam –
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Garlic chives grow very easy and come back each year. Love it!
Nathan –
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So good to have fresh garlic chives at home. I made a little plot near my house for my garlic chives. It makes it so easy for when I am cooking so I don’t have to run to the store to try and find.