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Water mimosa is a vegetable loved by many Thais. It has a crisp texture and you can use it in Thai stir-fries, salads or even sour curry. However, it needs to be prepared before you cook or eat it. Find out how to do just that in this post!

Water Mimosa | Pak Grached

Water mimosa, known as pak grached (ผักกระเฉด) in Thai, is a vegetable that has a unique look, texture, and scent. The young stems, shoots, and pods are quite crisp while the lower part of the pod is usually too chewy and to be discarded.

Water mimosa can be eaten both raw and cooked (like in this simple stir-fry, noodle stir-fry, or even Thai sour curry). One of the things you can eat it raw with that I can think of is khanom jeen nam ya (fermented rice noodles with curry). Though many advise not to eat it raw for hygienic reasons, as it grows on water.

Whether you want to eat it cooked or raw, this vegetable needs preparing. At first glance, you might not even think it's edible. To eat it, you need to know which parts to keep and which to discard.

Dishes You Can Cook With Water Mimosa

You can also blanch it and enjoy it with Thai chili dipping sauce (nam prik gapi) or use it as a main ingredient in Thai sweet-leef salad.

How To Prepare This Vegetable

You should prepare this vegetable as soon as you buy and refrigerate in a bag until you want to cook it (will keep for about five days). In Thailand, you can find pak gra ched at most wet markets and it usually comes in a 'bunch'.

Here's how to prepare it (I highly recommend watching my video tutorial!):

Take a strand and break the shoot tip and young stems, and put them in a bowl.
Use two hands to hold the top of the strand (one above the other) and use the upper hand to pull the strand away from yourself to remove the white foamy tissue and roots.
Break the pod in to pieces, about 4 cm. long each and discard the fibrous lower part, as this would be to chewy to eat. Repeat steps 1-3 with all the water mimosa.
Run the water through the water mimosa in the bowl.
Give the water mimosa gentle squeezes to separate it from any duckweed that might have come with it.
Drain the water and duckweed. Repeat steps 4-6 until the water is clean. The water mimosa is ready to use.

Tips For Cooking Water Mimosa

Do not cook this vegetable for a long time because it will be chewy when overcooked.
For blanching, it needs to be in boiling water for just about 30 seconds. The color of water mimosa does change after cooked for a while (it turns to a dull brownish-green). If you want it to remain bright green, transfer from the pot to cold water.
For most dishes such as stir-fries or sour curry, you want to add it last or when you're ready to eat because it cooks very quickly and the color will still be bright when served.