Life in China 2016: A Picture A Day, September 7 – We are still working on our goal of trying all of the different greens available here, so, today we bought some red amaranth greens, called “hong xian cai.” There are also plain green ones (bai xian cai), but the red are so much prettier :-) Many people today know amaranth as a healthy gluten free grain. These are the nutritional leaves of the same plant, commonly available in Asia, but probably only in specialty stores in Western locations. The young leaves can be used in salads and I’m thinking may come in the mixed assortments you can buy in the USA (?) The leaves you buy in China are more mature and are best cooked. Fix it like you would spinach: stir fry, steam or put it in soup. The stems can be eaten if you want or you can just use the leaves. The reddish-purple color will bleed into any liquid you use. We just stir-fried ours, stems and leaves, with some garlic and a little seasoning. We probably could’ve used a little more seasoning than we did, but it was good, and considering its list of nutritional benefits, and low cost (less than 40 cents usd for the bunch!) I’ll eat it again :-)