Wok noodles with Little Flowering Kale Thing (Raab) and Black Garlic

I’m on a mission to identify what’s growing in the garden and enjoy cooking with it. There is kale starting to form flower buds, resembling thin broccoli florets. I discovered these flower buds are called “raab”. They are tender and significantly less bitter and fibrous than broccoli.

I harvested these stems (leaving the leaves) and tossed them with shiitake mushrooms, garlic, onions, soy sauce, sesame oil & seeds, protein and egg noodles to create this dish. I used diced bacon and think firm tofu would work well too. Use high heat for that wok hei! Serve with kimchi and black garlic. Enjoy!

On “raab” etymology:


“Turnips are the true “Broccoli Raab”, also called Broccoli Rabe, or Rapini. “Rape” is the Italian name for turnip, and broccoli means something like flowering thing (in Mike’s rustic Italian). Adding “ini” at the end implies that it is a small thing, so if we put it all together “rapini” is a little turnip thing, and broccoli rabe is a flowering turnip thing.”

from https://whistlingtrainfarm.com/rapini%E2%80%94its-all-in-the-name/