Beijing cabbage: how to choose the right way to buy this crop, which is often called the 'Chinese salad'?

Beijing or Chinese, as it is often called, cabbage often turns out on holiday tables. Fresh peking leaves are added to salads and snacks for a rich taste of greens and brightness of the dish.

To make the salad tasty and crispy, you need to choose the right head in the store. This will require care and caution.

This article describes in detail how to choose the Beijing cabbage correctly so that the dishes from it will always turn out tasty and crispy. And also you can get acquainted with the video, which clearly shows which vegetables to avoid and which ones to pay attention to.

Why is it important to make the right choice?

Even if you have little time, and you need to cook an hour ago, do not be lazy, take a couple of minutes to choose fresh Beijing (Chinese) cabbage.

The stale, sluggish, Chinese leaves can not only spoil your dish, making it tasteless, but also cause serious harm to your health.

What should a healthy vegetable look like?

A healthy cabbage of cabbage has a rich color from white to dark green, depending on the growth stage of the vegetable when it was picked.
The leaves must be strong and elastic, which means that they have enough liquid.If the cabbage is too old, then its leaves gradually turn yellow, which means that the head is no longer as juicy and tasty as a few days ago, and you can use it, but it is better to give your choice to a fresher head.
The most succulent peking leaves have an almost white color. Do not worry - it does not mean that the vegetable is not ripe, it can be eaten, and its leaves will be nice to crunch.
On a healthy head of cabbage there should be no brown spots indicating the beginning of rotting and the fact that the cabbage is spoiled and unsuitable for ingestion.
There was no damage on the head of cabbage, or their number was small - on the ground of the cut leaves or the damage on them, bacteria immediately accumulate, which may harm your health.

What to look for when buying?

If you have a choice, you should prefer to head out without any packaging - film or package, so you can inspect the cabbage from all sides.
Then take the cabbage in the hands and squeeze a little - it should not be soft or loose. Elastic and fresh fleshy leaves will be pleasant to the touch.
Carefully inspect the heading. The leaves on it should not be damaged (scratched) or cut off, it can lead to the accumulation of bacteria at the site of damage.
If you notice rot on the leaves, you should immediately reject this head - rot can harm your body more than you think, and also spoil the taste of the dish.
Then inspect the leaves - they should not be withered and yellowed; all taste and juiciness are gone from such leaves.
Carefully ensure that there are no water drops on the head of the cabbage - this means that the producers artificially prolong the life of the vegetable, creating the illusion of freshness, although in fact the leaves have already lost their juiciness.
Carefully smell the Peking cabbage; the vegetable itself does not have a pronounced smell, so any foreign chemical smell means that the producers used growth stimulants.
Pay attention to the saturation of the color of the Peking cabbage, there are several types of cabbage in the stores, and they are all different shades - from yellow-green to dark green, but they are all fresh if the color is saturated.