Chinese Celery

Chinese celery (Apium graveolens var. secalinum), known as kintsay in the Philippines and qin cai (芹菜) in China, is a slender, intensely aromatic leaf-and-stalk celery grown across East and Southeast Asia as a herb and aromatic rather than a crudité vegetable. Where Western bunching celery is bred for thick, watery, mild petioles, Chinese celery is the leaf-celery (cutting-celery) form: its stalks are thin, hollow and sometimes barely thicker than a pencil, dark green to nearly white, and topped with a generous, ragged mass of flat-cut leaves. Every part is used, and every part is loud — the flavour is concentrated, sharply herbal and peppery-green, several times stronger than an ordinary stalk, with a bitter, almost medicinal edge that mellows fast when it hits hot oil or broth. It is a finishing herb and a stir-fry aromatic far more than a snack.