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Vegetables from Chaoshan, Guangdong, China

Gong cai (Teochew sweet dried mustard strips)贡菜

Big-leaf mustard is cut into strips and sun-dried until most of its water is gone, then mixed with salt, sugar, galangal and baijiu and sealed in jars. Once fermentation starts, the jars may be set in the sun. In a few weeks the strips turn yellow, sweet-salty and crisp, with a faint wine scent.

Fully documentedVegetables10 days – 30 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedHousehold and factory pickle; the sources give the ingredients but no amounts.
Big-leaf mustard, washed and cut[tp2026][zhwiki]
Salt and white sugarIn proportion; no source read gives amounts[tp2026][zhwiki]
Galangal (南姜), with galangal powder sealed on topChinese Wikipedia names minced ginger[tp2026][zhwiki]
Baijiu[tp2026][zhwiki]

Total time across the recorded steps: 10 days – 30 days

Start
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What changes: Big-leaf mustard is washed and cut into long strips

Step 1 of 5
Cut the mustard into strips
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Big-leaf mustard is cut into strips and sun-dried until most of its water is gone, then mixed with salt, sugar, galangal and baijiu and sealed in jars. Once fermentation starts, the jars may be set in the sun. In a few weeks the strips turn yellow, sweet-salty and crisp, with a faint wine scent. Made in 5 steps over 10 days – 30 days. The longest step, ferment, then set in the sun, takes 10–30 days (Guangdong Provincial Tourism Administration 2018).

Key numbers
Main step10–30 daysReported[gd-gov][tp2026]Ferment, then set in the sun

What makes this one different

Gong cai uses the same mustard as Chaoshan sour salted greens (xian cai), but it is dried first and cured sweet with sugar, galangal and liquor, so it is sweet-salty and crisp, not sour. With xian cai and caipu it is one of the three main Chaoshan pickles.

Related ferments

Safety

As a general hazard of fermented mustard greens, a 2026 review reports that nitrite often forms and builds up in fermented or pickled vegetables. A little adds to the flavour, but too much is a health risk, so the review calls for tracking nitrite during fermentation. The same review names histamine as the main biogenic amine in fermented mustard.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

History
The sources we found do not record its history.
Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
Temperature, salt and pH
The sources we found give no temperature, salt or pH figure for any of its steps.
  1. [gd-gov] Guangdong Provincial Tourism Administration, 贡菜, Guangdong Provincial Government portal (走进广东, 广东美食), 7 August 2018gov
  2. [tp2026] 吃货研究所 (Guokr), 潮汕有多好吃?连小咸菜都能天天不重样, The Paper (thepaper.cn), 4 January 2026web
  3. [zhwiki] Chinese Wikipedia, 贡菜 (潮汕), read 2026-10wiki
  4. [diao2026] Diao N. et al., 2026, Recent advances on fermentation of mustard plant (Brassica juncea L.): microbial community, fermentation processing and sensorial quality, a review, Frontiers in Microbiology (general hazards of fermented mustard)paper