Fruit Vegetables Category
Chinese eggplant
Compared to the familiar American eggplant, Chinese eggplants have thinner skins, a more delicate flavor, and not as many of the seeds that tend to make eggplants bitter.
Learn morechipotle pepper
These dried and smoked jalapeño peppers lend a wonderful, complex flavor to sauces. They're usually rehydrated and canned in adobo sauce, but you can also buy them dried in cellophane bags. They are medium hot.
Learn moreCosteño Amarillo
This yellow Mexican chili is used to make soups, stews, and mole sauces. It's fruity and moderately hot and somewhat hard to find.
Learn morecousa squash
This Middle-Eastern summer squash looks a lot like spaghetti squash, only it has a thin, edible skin. It's similar to zucchini, but its larger size makes it a natural for stuffing.
Learn morecracked Provencal
These aromatic green olives are marinated in a solution with herbes de Provence.
Learn morecubanelle
These sweet, mild peppers are usually sold while yellowish-green. They become hotter and redder as they mature.
Learn moredelicata squash
This is one of the tastier winter squashes, with creamy pulp that tastes a bit like sweet potatoes. Choose squash that are heavy for their size.
Learn moreEggplants
This is a spongy, mild-tasting vegetable that's meaty yet low in calories. It's never eaten raw, but it can be baked, grilled, or sautéed. The best eggplants are shiny, firm (but not too hard), and heavy for their size, with bright green stems and unbroken skin. Smaller eggplants tend to have fewer bitter seeds, as do "male" ones with round scars at their blossom (non-stem) end. (The scars on "female" eggplants look like dashes.) Freshness is important, so don't store eggplants for very long.
Learn moreEnglish cucumber
This foot-long slicing cucumber is pricier and less flavorful than other varieties, but it has less conspicuous seeds, a thinner skin, and a plastic wrapper--instead of a wax coating--to improve shelf life. All of this saves preparation time, since there's no need to peel or seed the cucumber before slicing it. This is a good variety if you focused on looks--you can cut it into round, green trimmed slices.
Learn moreFresno pepper
These are similar to jalapeno peppers, but with thinner walls. They're great in salsas. Green Fresnos are available in the summer. the hotter red ones come out in the fall.
Learn moreFuerte avocado
This is in season from late fall through spring. It's not quite as buttery as the Hass avocado, but its flavor is excellent.
Learn moreGaeta olives
These are small, purple Italian olives are either dry-cured (making them black and wrinkled) or brine-cured (making them dark purple and smooth-skinned).
Learn moregarden cucumber
You can find these throughout the year at all but the most poorly stocked markets. The ones you find in supermarkets are usually waxed to hold in moisture and improve shelf-life--these should be peeled or at least scrubbed well before serving. Unwaxed cucumbers don't need to be peeled, but better cooks often do so since the peels tend to be thick and bitter. It's also a good idea to remove the seeds from these kinds of cucumbers; just cut them in half lengthwise and scrape them out. Select cukes that are firm, dark green, and rounded at the tips.
Learn moregarden eggs
These are tiny eggplants, the size of an egg or smaller. Their color ranges from white to greenish-yellow.
Learn moregherkin cucumber
These small, bumpy greed cucumbers are used to make Gherkin pickles or, if pickled while still small, cornichon pickles.
Learn moreghost pepper
Ghost peppers are a very hot (over 1,000,000 scovilles) hybrid between Capsicum chinese and Capsicum frutescens. It is grown and used in northern India.
Learn moregolden nugget squash
This has a pleasant flavor, but it doesn't have as much flesh as other squashes and the heavy rind makes it hard to cut before cooking. Select specimens that are heavy for their size, and that have a dull finish. Those with shiny rinds were probably picked too young, and won't be as sweet.
Learn moreGreek black olives
A generic black Greek olive is large, dark purple and brine-cured. Popular varieties include Kalamata, Amphissa, and Royal.
Learn moreGreek green olives
Napfilion and Ionian olives are the most common types of green Greek olives.
Learn moregreen olives
Green olives are picked from the tree before they're completely ripened. The most common variety is the Manzanilla olive, which is often pitted and stuffed. Other green olives varieties include the Agrinion, Arauco, Arbequina, Atalanta, green Cerignola, cracked Provençal, Kura, Lucque, Nafplion, Picholine, Sevillano, and Sicilian.
Learn moreguajillo chili
One of the more popular Mexican chilies, the guajillo (or dried mirasol chili) has a fruity flavor and medium heat (Scoville heat scale of 2,500 to 5,000 SHU). It's smooth, shiny, and reddish-brown, and it has a tough skin, so it needs to be soaked longer than other chiles. These are commonly used for marinades and adobos.
Learn morehabanero - dried
Don't confuse dried habaneros with the fresh version, which goes by the same name. These extremely hot chiles are wrinkled and orange.
Learn morehabanero - fresh
These extremely hot orange chiles have a fruity flavor. They're best in the summertime.
Learn moreHass avocado
This is available year-round and has a rich flavor and creamy texture. The skin turns almost black when the avocado is ripe, which can camouflage bad bruises. This is the best variety by far for guacamole, but it turns a bit mushy in salads.
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