Lily flowers both dried or fresh are used in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, and Vietnamese cooking, and are known as golden needles.
The plant is the hermerocallis fulva, can also be found in Malaysia.
The flower forms a long, thin bud, blooms for one day only, and withers to a long, thin shape again. The name golden needles stems from their fresh state; dried, the flowers are an unassuming brown.
The dried flowers can be bought in many Chinese medicine shops all over Malaysia. Today they are sold in supermarkets in packets.
The flavor is described as "earthy" or "musky-sweet." Most Foochows use it to make soups slightly sour. Plain pork soups become very tasty and flavourful with a hand ful of the golden needles. They are also very important ingredients for dian bian hu, chao chai hoong ngang and other rice vermicelli soups.
Because they are cooling in nature, cooks don't usually use a lot of them.
They also help to make some vegetarian dishes very flavourful.
The dried flowers are soaked in warm water for a half hour before use. They are often tied in knots to keep them from unfurling, or shredded or cut into bite-sized pieces to spread throughout a dish
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