8.19.2008

Kiam Chye 咸菜

一番上の写真がシンガポールの市場で売られていたキアム(キャム)・チャイです。塩漬け野菜と書いて(咸菜)潮州語でキアムチャイと読みます。本来は潮州の食材ですが、シンガポールでは定番の漬物で、スープに入れたり、炒め物に使ったり・麺の具になったりと大変良く使われるの食材です。主に潮州料理に使用しますが、福建料理・ニョニャ料理・ユーラシアン料理にも出てきます。肝心な味のほうなのですが、高菜に非常に良く似ていますが、そのままで食べるととにかくショッパイので水に浸けて塩を取り除く必要があります。このキアムチャイの元の野菜は英語でマスタードキャベージ、日本語ではからし菜。キアム・チャイはアジア食材屋で缶詰で購入可能‐2番目の写真。

Kiam Chye (pronounced kiam chai), also known as salted-pickled mustard cabbage is of Teochew origin however, in Singapore, where all the races come together, kiam chye is used not only in Teochew cuisine but I have also witnessed them in Hokkien, Hainanese, Peranakan and Eurasian cuisine -an ingredient which has no borders. I've always wondered but this kiam chye, doesn't it sound like kim chee? Although the chinese characters differ kiam chye (咸菜) and kimchee (沈菜) and approximate translation kiam chye -salted vegetable and kimchee -sunk vegetable. I shall look into this further.... to be continued. By the way, what does kiam chye taste like: since it is salt-preserved, you need to get rid of excess salt by soaking in the water for half an hour. The flavor resembles takana-a Japanese pickle with a slightly tangy note and simple mustard cabbage flavor (since what's basically used is only salt just like sauerkraut). Not as cabbagy as sauerkraut but slightly similar.


1 件のコメント:

Joon Oh さんのコメント...

Kiam Chye, looks interesting. I guess that's maybe where 'Kimchi' originated from. If you've had both, how do the tastes differ?