Vegetables Category

Kale is a kind of cabbage with dark green, wrinkled leaves. It's prized more for its hardiness than its flavor or delicacy, but it continues to be popular in the South, where it's often cooked as a side dish. Remove and discard the tough center stalks before cooking. Varieties include curly kale, dinosaur kale = black cabbage = lacinato kale, and the popular Red Russian kale = ragged jack kale.

This mild Kashmiri chili is used in Indian cooking to add flavor and color.

Kershaw squash is an heirloom squash. It is mostly grown in the American south. Kershaw squash was cultivated by native Americans.

This short, versatile cucumber is used for both slicing and pickling. It's small, with bumpy yellow or green skin. Like the English cucumber, it has a thin skin and inconspicuous seeds.

Kittely is a small round eggplant. It is used in soups and stews.

This melon has a gorgeous orange rind with spikes--poke a stick in it and you'd have a medieval mace for a Halloween costume. The yellow-green flesh has the consistency of jello, and tastes a bit like cucumbers.

A kohlrabi resembles a turnip, only it's sweeter and more delicately flavored. It's light green and sometimes sold with its edible greens attached. It can be eaten raw or cooked. Choose small ones, and peel before using.

These can be cooked just like Swiss chard. Remove the stems first if they're too thick.

Like other sea vegetables, konbu is rich in minerals. It's very popular in Japan, where it's used to flavor dashi, a soup stock. Konbu is usually sold dried, in strips or sheets. Choose konbu that's very dark, almost black, and don't wipe off the white residue that often appears on the surface; it's very flavorful.

This African green is very hard to find fresh in the United States, and the canned version is terrible.

This Middle Eastern cracked green olive is hard to find in the U.S.

This hard-to-find sweet pepper is smaller and sweeter than its cousin, the bell pepper, with which it's interchangeable.

This protein-rich seaweed is popular in Britain and Japan. To rehydrate, soak it in water for about an hour, then add it to soups and salads. Laver is sometimes called nori, but that name is more commonly used for the dark sheets that the Japanese use to wrap sushi, which are made from the same plant.

With their crispness and mild flavor, these lettuces are great in salads and sandwiches.

Leeks look like large green onions, and they have a more complex onion flavor. They're often cooked as a vegetable side dish, or used in soups. Be sure to wash them thoroughly before cooking as the leaves are notorious for collecting dirt.

This versatile cucumber is sweet and flavorful, and doesn't have much of the chemical that makes other cucumbers bitter and hard to digest. Though it's often served raw, it's also a good pickling cucumber.

This Indonesian rhizome looks a bit like ginger, only it's smaller and darker. It's hard to find in the U.S., but your best bet is to look in Asian markets. It's sold fresh, frozen, pickled, dried, or powdered. Used the dried or powdered versions only in a pinch.

These are mild salad greens that are always served fresh, either in salads or as garnishes. There are four basic categories: iceberg lettuce, with leaves that grow in a dense "head," leaf lettuce, with loosely gathered leaves, butterhead lettuce, with tender leaves that form a soft head, and romaine lettuce, with closely packed leaves in an elongated head. Select lettuce that has rich color and crisp, fresh-looking leaves.

These small Italian olives are brine-cured.

These are actually white mushrooms that have been coated by a red fungus.

This mild, tender lettuce has ruffled red edges.

These oblong potatoes have a medium starch content, and are valued for their versatility. They're good to keep in the pantry as an all-purpose potato.

Slices of the lotus root have a beautiful pattern. The fresh version is available sporadically; if not, the canned version is almost as good. Rinse and drain before using. Look for it in Asian markets.

These green olives are brine-cured.

These are salty Italian/Swiss brownish-black olives.

This Japanese mushroom is reputed to have numerous health benefits. It also has a nice, earthy flavor.

This is cooked much like spinach, but it's a bit slimy like okra. It occasionally shows up in Asian markets

Like taro and cassava, malanga is used in tropical countries in much the same way that potatoes are used in more temperate climates.

This habanero relative is often used in salsas. It has black seeds. These are hot.

These green olives are available in most supermarkets. They're often pitted and stuffed with pimento or garlic. They're often put into martinis.

These are popular in Japan, but they're hard to find fresh in the United States and dried matsutakes aren't nearly as flavorful. Avoid canned matsutakes, they're even worse than dried.

With their small size and shiny black skins, these look like elongated plums. You can eat them, skin and all

This is a small, black-skinned avocado that's the size and shape of a fig. Since the peel is edible, they can be eaten like a peach. There's a smaller variety, the Mexicola cocktail avocado, that's oblong and virtually seedless. They'd make a great addition to a vegetable platter.

Mirasol peppers have a distinctive fruity flavor. These are moderately hot. When dried, these are called Guajillo chiles.

These are the common black ones that are ubiquitous in supermarkets, pizza parlors, and salad bars. They don't have as much character as European black olives.

These are flower buds that emerge from a variety of ginger. They're quite mild. Look for them in Japanese markets.

Mizuna has tender leaves and a pleasant, peppery flavor.