Chickweed

Health Benefits

The Donguibogam record — nature, taste and the name. The Donguibogam lists chickweed in the Vegetable section as 蘩蔞, with the Korean name of the period written alongside. It gives the plant a neutral nature, called slightly cool by some, a sour taste and no toxicity. It identifies it with 雞腸草 and explains the name: the stem trails, thread-like fibres string across when it is snapped, and it is thin and hollow like a chicken's gut. It also records that the plant is boiled as a green and can be eaten raw. This is an old medical record and differs from modern medical judgement.

Compositional analysis of the aerial parts. Analyses of chickweed's aerial parts report saponins and flavonoids. Vitamin C has been measured high relative to other gathered greens, though with wide variation by season and plant part. This is a record of composition and nothing should be read past it.

Nutrition

• Vitamin C (reported high for a spring green) — a water-soluble vitamin
• Saponins (distributed through the aerial parts) — glycosides that foam in the blanching water
• Potassium (the main mineral in leaf and stem) — a mineral common in leafy vegetables
• Dietary fibre (in the thin hollow stems) — insoluble fibre that carries the texture

Bulk and water The stems are hollow, so a full handful collapses to very little once blanched. Raw chickweed is mostly water and the tissue is soft enough to fall apart if it is fried for long. Twenty to thirty seconds in boiling water, then straight into cold water, keeps both colour and bite. It weighs almost nothing, so a side dish for one meal takes two hands full.

Vitamin C Some analyses put chickweed's vitamin C high among the greens gathered in spring. Being water-soluble, it leaves with the blanching water if the pot is left too long. That is why the plant was either dipped briefly or dressed raw when the shoots were young. Reported figures swing widely with the season and the part sampled.

Saponins and the scratchy finish Analyses report saponins in the aerial parts of chickweed. They are the usual explanation for the foam that rises off the blanching water. Eaten raw in quantity, they can leave a scratchy feeling at the back of the throat, so take only young shoots and discard the blanching water. Large raw servings are not the way to use this plant.

Pairings

○ Doenjang — Blanched chickweed is mild, and soybean paste gives it a spine. Squeeze out the water and dress with doenjang, minced garlic and sesame oil. Go light on the paste, or the green flavour disappears entirely.

○ Rice and rice porridge — Chop it fine and lay it over rice as the pot finishes, or stir it into white porridge at the very end. Short heat keeps the colour. The old record also has it boiled as a green and eaten raw.

○ Sesame oil and toasted sesame — The thin leaves take up oil readily, and toasted sesame fills in the flat spots. Eat it right after dressing, before water weeps out.

△ Tell it apart from the spurges, which bleed white latex — Spurges such as Euphorbia helioscopia come up among chickweed on early-spring field margins. Snap the stem or a leaf of a spurge and white latex weeps out; that latex irritates skin and mucous membranes and the plant is not eaten. Chickweed gives no latex when snapped, only thread-like fibres stringing across — the same trait the Donguibogam recorded. Break one stem before picking, and drop the clump if a white sap shows.

△ Do not confuse it with scarlet pimpernel — Scarlet pimpernel (Lysimachia arvensis) shares both the habit and the Korean name pattern, and it is not eaten. It grows in southern fields and on Jeju, and its orange-red flowers open one petal layer at a time, unlike chickweed's white bloom. Chickweed has white petals split into what look like ten, with a hair line down one side of the stem; water chickweed, which is harmless, carries five styles and can go in the same basket. Leave any plant you cannot identify while it is out of flower.

△ Roadsides and drainage ditches — Chickweed thrives exactly where people pass, which means herbicide and exhaust. Skip roadsides, sprayed field margins and dog-walking routes. Better to give it one corner of a bed or plot and harvest only from there.

△ Large raw servings — Young shoots are used raw, but not by the bowlful. The saponins can leave the throat feeling scratchy. Blanching and pouring off the water takes most of that away. Anyone eating it for the first time should start small.

Varieties

• Common chickweed (seed) — Five white petals split so deeply they look like ten. Three styles
• Water chickweed (soebyeolkkot) (seed) — Larger, with five styles instead of three. Used the same way
• Mouse-ear chickweed (jeomnadonamul) (seed) — Densely hairy leaves and stems. Grows mixed in along field edges
• Gaebyeolkkot (seed) — A similar name but a different genus. Shaded hillsides, with tubers