Bamboo shoot

Pousse de bambou

What it is

Dug in spring before the shoot breaks ground, because it grows fast enough to be measured hourly and turns woody within days. Fresh shoots contain cyanogenic compounds and must be boiled — one of the few vegetables that is genuinely toxic raw.

In the kitchen

Tinned shoots keep a metallic edge. Boil them for five minutes in fresh water before use and it goes.

Goes with

Soy sauce Ginger Sesame Shiitake Chili pepper Spring onion Garlic Fish sauce

Also used with

Fuki (butterbur stalk) Hana-sanshō (sanshō flower buds) Longjing tea Mei gan cai Kinome (sanshō leaf) Jinhua ham

In season alongside

Celeriac Miner's lettuce St George’s mushroom Ribwort plantain Barbe de capucin Brousse du Rove

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