A fleeting ingredient steals the show at this Chinese restaurant in the Philly suburbs

As the server repeated the lineup of dishes for our meal at Dim Sum Mania in Media — hand-pleated soup dumplings, pork and chive dumplings, crispy turnip cakes, punchy kung pao chicken — she raised her index finger in thought and paused to let us know we were missing an essential: snow pea leaves.

“They’re very special right now,” Ann Zeng said, “and I want you to try them.”

The snow pea leaves arrived moments later, a steaming mound of delicate stems and silken leaves so luminous, they glowed like battery-powered jade. And what a crunch: Their tiny stems gave a tender yet sturdy snap, with a vegetal, nutty sweetness that, if I closed my eyes, I could actually imagine growing into a pea. They were so flavorful, seasoned with little more than a pinch of salt, sugar, and garlic. The natural beauty of those tendrils, tumbled through the blazing heat of chef Tom Guo’s wok, does all the rest.

“We always choose greens to go with a Chinese meal, because they add balance, healthy freshness, and contrast to all the other flavors. But pea leaves are my favorite,” said Guo, who owns branches of Dim Sum Mania in Media and Berwyn. “You can call them the Queen of Greens.”

Snow pea leaves (豆苗 in Chinese) are among the most expensive Asian greens, thanks to their fragile nature and the need to painstakingly prune through each batch, snapping off large parts of stem that can become woody.

“Sometimes they may be $7 a pound, but once you trash so much of them, they become almost $10 or $11 pound. Sometimes I even lose money,” said Guo, who currently charges $15 for a plate. “But people like them so much, you need to cook them.”

TingTing Wan, who owns EMei in Chinatown, said pea leaves are her favorite green, too, not just because of their tenderness, but their fleeting seasonality. While their season has been extended to nearly year-round by modern agriculture in North America — most are currently grown in Mexico — according to Yan Lin of Chinatown’s Asianfresh market, pea leaves are most prized during the cold months in China, from February into early spring, with a second burst in early fall. By the end of May, Wan’s chefs at EMei will already be turning their attention to water spinach, which has its own virtues (especially served cold) but is also considerably less flavorful.

That means there are still a few weeks left to capture pea leaves in their prime at Dim Sum Mania or one of the better Cantonese kitchens in Chinatown, like seafood stalwart Tai Lake (134 N. 10th St.), where the green‘s luxury status is celebrated in signature dishes alongside other premium ingredients — poached alongside two kinds of eggs in chicken broth, for example, or topped with rehydrated dried scallops.

For such a delicate green, the pea leaves stood up nicely to all those other ingredients, with both stems and leaves pitching in for a resonant crunch to contrast the jellied texture of preserved dark century eggs and the spongy snap of straw mushrooms. Still, I love pea leaves most when cooked simply on their own. And Guo makes them look so easy at Dim Sum Mania, completing the dish from start to finish in just over a minute.

Guo agreed to provide a tutorial for cooking them. He has the advantage of a professional wok, which has firepower that can’t be replicated in most home kitchens, but with all your prep in place — including a pot of boiling water beside your wok — you can come close. Take 1 pound of well-trimmed greens and blanch them in boiling water for 10 seconds, then quickly remove and drain them, a process that sets the color, tenderizes the stems, and enhances their sweetness. Add a tablespoon of oil to a hot wok, then a quarter teaspoon of salt. Once it’s smoking hot, add your greens and stir-fry vigorously for 12 to 15 seconds. Add a pinch of sugar, a teaspoon of minced garlic, and toss in the wok for a few more seconds over the fire.

They were so good at Dim Sum Mania, we ended up eating the dumplings to accompany our pea leaves, rather than the other way around. The Queen of Greens, indeed, is a draw in her own right.

Snow pea leaves, currently $17.95a plate at Dim Sum Mania: 17-19 E. State St., Media, 610-557-8757; or 300 Swedesford Rd., Berwyn, 484-320-8879; dimsummania.com