I'm getting back in touch with my Asian side, all. It started with a little dig into my roots with bulgogi, and now, motivated by the Chinese New Year this weekend, I am going full force with a little lesson in Asian greens. There are so many greens and vegetables that originate in Asia that we could cover, but we're just picking and choosing ones that we see pop up in recipes more often than others.

Bamboo Shoots - These are so common, it seems odd to include them, as if they were "exotic" in some way. Bamboo shoots are the part of the bamboo grass that we eat, which are harvested before the bamboo gets too tall and tough to eat. Most commonly, bamboo shoots are canned, though it is available as fresh bamboo. If you buy fresh bamboo, it has to be cooked, as fresh bamboo is hard to digest. Bamboo shoots are often used as an ingredient in stir-fry dishes, like Beef and Bamboo Shoot Stirfry.

If you're becoming more and more into Asian foods, or are new to Asian foods, then I've just come across a cool site that serves as a decent resource, www.asiafood.org. The site has recipes, links to other Asian food resources, feature articles as well as restaurant reviews (though they seem to focus only on a few sleect places like NYC). However, the greatest information is AsiaFood's glossary. It doesn't have pictures, and the definitions are brief, but for quick information, it seems to do the drink. For example, maybe you need to find out what gamboge is. Well, it's an acidic fruit from southern India and Sri Lanka! 

AsiaFood's glossary helped me out a little today when I was trying to figure out what the heck grass jelly is.

Grains, beans, and other legumes make up a large part of the Asian diet. In fact, at the Korean market, entire aisles can be dedicated to beans alone. Koreans add beans to white rice, creating a "mixed" steamed rice. My mother did this a few times when we were kids because there are a lot of health benefits, but when we saw bowls of steamed rice tainted with giant red, purple, and black beans, we wouldn't touch it. She made two pots of rice every night after that. One with plain white rice, and one with a mixture.

Some of us may be familiar with adzuki beans after they have been cooked down to almost a paste. They beans are sweet and nutty, but they are made sweeter with the addition of sugar and honey and used as a filling in pastries like Japanese mochi and Korean dduk. Koreans also use the beans to make "jook," a sweet porridge.

More Korean market food finds:
Dae chu - Korean red dates, aka jujubes
Ume (Japanese plum) cactus honey
All-in-one packaged sahm-gyae-tahng - Korean chicken soup
Ready-steamed bahp - rice
Clam jerky
Bahn-chan bar - salad bar of Korean side dishes

I do a lot of Asian cooking at home, so these are a few things I like to have on hand:

• Soy sauce - I actually have a giant 1-gallon container in my refrigerator. Yes, keep soy sauce in the refrigerator. Also, if you are wary of gluten or carbs, there is wheat in soy sauce (who knew?)
• Sesame seeds - I have both regular and black sesame seeds. They taste the same to me, but the black ones add some contrast for presentation. However, there is a difference in taste between regular and toasted sesame seeds. If you buy regular sesame seeds, toast them yourself in a dry pan over medium high heat.
• Sesame oil - It's rarely used as a cooking oil, but rather, as a seasoning in marinades or added to a dish like a condiment just before serving for its fragrance.
• Rice - Short grain rice that is "sticky" when it is steamed.