Fruit Vegetables Category

Unlike many chilies, these remain bright red even after drying, so they're a favorite for making chili wreaths. They're very hot and somewhat acidic. Don't confuse the dried version with the fresh or powdered versions, which go by the same name.

This excellent Mexican chili is loaded with flavor but hard to find. It's used to make mole negro and bean dishes. It is moderately hot.

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.

These are darker, milder versions of the chipotle chile.

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.

This yellow Mexican chili is used to make soups, stews, and mole sauces. It's fruity and moderately hot and somewhat hard to find.

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.

These aromatic green olives are marinated in a solution with herbes de Provence.

They are moderately hot.

These sweet, mild peppers are usually sold while yellowish-green. They become hotter and redder as they mature.

These are about half the size of cherry tomatoes.

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.

Look for these in Middle Eastern markets.

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.

These Spanish black olives are soaked in sherry.

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.

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.

This is in season from late fall through spring. It's not quite as buttery as the Hass avocado, but its flavor is excellent.

This sweet and mild squash has a fuzzy feel to it.

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).

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.

These are tiny eggplants, the size of an egg or smaller. Their color ranges from white to greenish-yellow.

These small, bumpy greed cucumbers are used to make Gherkin pickles or, if pickled while still small, cornichon pickles.

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.

You can stuff these and bake them, or slice and sauté them.

This is an orange-red variety of Hubbard 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.

A generic black Greek olive is large, dark purple and brine-cured. Popular varieties include Kalamata, Amphissa, and Royal.

Napfilion and Ionian olives are the most common types of green Greek olives.

This has a very mild flavor.

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.

These are picked before they turn red. Southerners like to fry them.

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.

These are moderately hot.

Don't confuse dried habaneros with the fresh version, which goes by the same name. These extremely hot chiles are wrinkled and orange.

These extremely hot orange chiles have a fruity flavor. They're best in the summertime.