These mild scented garlic flowers are delicious not to mention pretty only taking a couple of minutes to cook. After a fleeting visit this week to Chinatown in London I picked up these garlic chives, which I love and can only buy them there, and without fail I couldn’t resist picking up a couple of other things… who can? Even if traveling back on the tube, unable to carry a heavy load and are very short on time I don’t believe any food obsessed person can walk past a food aladin’s cave and just buy one item…nope..not possible. I bought garlic shoots, from afar they look like snake beans, bought Chinese chives, banana leaves because I’ve never used them before. Picked up a large bunch of lemongrass, long enough to use them as skewers since what you buy in the supermarket are 3 little shorten stems. By now I was running out of both time and hands and just picked up two small packs of those little frozen dumpling things…they’ll make a quick lunch……I stayed away from looking at the shelves full of packs and jars and forced myself to keep on walking pass….must not stop and look at rows of interesting jars with fascinating little symbols filled with dried and preserved foods strange to the western eye…my cupboards are full of those….
I bought two bunches of the garlic chives and the first one I cooked for the family with a throw everything in the pan family meal…you know type of thing…had leftover boiled new potatoes, they went in after softening an onion and garlic with lots of olive oil, and a handful of cocktail size sausages, then thin strips of chicken followed by a little chicken gravy and the garlic chives. We call it leftover night, gets rids of all those little bowls of food in the fridge and as long as you start with a soften onion and end with a little stock or gravy the family love it.
I’ve always associated garlic chives with the very first time I ate some in a Japanese restaurant stir fried with little tiny pieces of pork and little sauce probably made with miso. I would order this dish every time I was there. I would like to try and make some at home but for now I needed a quick fix and nothing is quicker to deliver salty meaty flavour against the mild garlic scented greens than bacon.
Chinese Garlic Chives with Bacon
That’s all there is here just little of pieces of bacon and garlic chives.
Throw the bacon into a dry pan and cook until the fat starts to render.
Cut the garlic chives in half and throw in the bottom thicker half first.
Keep stirring them and after a few seconds they’ll start to wilt.
After 30 seconds or so add the flower half of the chives and continue until they’re soften and ready.
The chives should be ready within a couple of minutes of cooking.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Mmmmmmm! And I’m with you on not being able to buy just one thing…
Looks delicious ..! Could you make something similar with the wild garlic that is growing in the woodland at the moment?
Twinkleberry, anything with a garlic scent should be paired with salty bacon…mmmm…great idea!
I’ve never tasted garlic chives. It looks like a wonderful, fresh and tasty dish.
i found garlic chives at the second attempt in Loon Fung in London – but they call them chive flowers which is a nice name – do you always use fat bacon for this? have been kinda terrified of eating anything with a microgram of salt or fat in it!
anyway it turned out really well – thank for this and all your great stuff…love the site and I will tell people about it