Vegetables Category

The flesh of this tropical Asian sweet potato is vivid purple. It's perfect for tempura, but it can also be baked, sauteed, boiled, steamed, or mashed. It is very popular in desserts in the Philippines where it is know as ube.

When cooked, okra exudes a slimy substance, which serves as a wonderful thickener in stews. Unfortunately, that sliminess puts off many diners, but you can minimize it by buying small, fresh okra and by cooking it very briefly. Okra's popular in the South, where they fry it in cornmeal, pickle it (this also gets rid of the sliminess), and use it to thicken their gumbos.

A staple of Mediterranean cuisines, olives are most often eaten out of hand, though cooks also use them to flavor everything from pizzas to martinis. Raw olives must be cured before they can be eaten, and the curing medium--usually lye, brine, or salt--affects their flavor and texture. So too does the olive's degree of ripeness when it's picked. Green olives are picked while unripe, which makes them denser and more bitter than brown or black olives, which stay on the tree until fully ripened. Olives become bitter if they're cooked too long, so always add them to hot dishes at the last minute. Opened cans or jars of olives should be refrigerated, but some olives can be stored at room temperature if they're submerged in brine or olive oil.

These are onions that have been chopped and then dehydrated. They lack much of the pungency of fresh onions, but they're convenient and great for backpacking.

Onion powder isn't as pungent as fresh onions, but it's a great time-saver.

These have a distinct onion flavor.

These are used in sauces and soups. They're hot.

This is a mild squash, similar to zucchini.

Oyster mushrooms are prized for their smooth texture and subtle, oyster-like flavor. They can also be grown commercially, so they're widely available and fairly inexpensive.

These hard to find and expensive leaves taste a little like oysters. Oyster plants are low growing perennial herb in the borage family.

This is hard to find in the United States, but it's a popular root vegetable in Central Europe. For more information, see the Wegman's Food Market's page on Parsley Root.

These are like carrots, except that they're cream-colored and never served raw. Northern Europeans like to add them to stews, but they can also be puréed or served as a side dish. Choose small, crisp ones.

This is the dried version of the chilaca chili. It's mild, long, black, and wrinkled, and a standard ingredient in mole sauces. Ancho chilies are sometimes mislabeled as pasillas.

These have a pleasant, nutty flavor. They're small enough to grill whole, but lots of recipes call for them to be hollowed out, stuffed, and baked. There are green and yellow varieties; yellow ones are sometimes called sunburst squash.

These tiny Thai eggplants are quite bitter. They're sold in clusters and look like large green peas. You can find them fresh in Thai markets, or buy them pickled in jars.

These tiny onions are sweet and mild. About one inch in diameter, they're often pickled or creamed.

These small red peppers are very hot.

This is very similar to a Japanese cucumber.

Picholines are green, torpedo-shaped olives that are brine-cured. Those made in Provence are marinated with coriander and herbes de Provence, while American picholines are soaked in citric acid. They make great martini olives.

Pimentos are often sold roasted and peeled in cans or jars, or used to stuff green olives.

These peel easily and their flavor is excellent. One of the best varieties.

These are insanely hot tiny peppers.

These mild, heart-shaped peppers are large and have very thick walls, which make them great for stuffing. They're best in the summer. When dried, this pepper is called an Ancho chili.

The flavor of this mushroom has been likened to that of lobster and crab.

These are mild Italian brine-cured black olives.

Porcini mushrooms are well appreciated in Europe for their meaty texture and interesting flavor. If you can find them fresh, pick the largest caps you can find (or afford). Just wipe them clean before using; if you wash them, they'll soak up the water like a sponge. Dried porcini are also excellent.

These are just large cremini mushrooms, and their size (about the same as a hamburger patty) makes them perfect for grilling or roasting. They're also more flavorful than younger, smaller creminis.

Use the small sugar pumpkin = pie pumpkin for pies; the larger jack o'lantern pumpkin is too watery. Canned pumpkin purée is convenient and a good substitute for fresh.

Pumpkin leaves can be served fresh or in soups and stews.

These purple-fleshed potatoes have a medium starch content, so they're good all-purpose potatoes. They lend an interesting color to mashed potatoes or potato salads, but they're not as flavorful as other varieties. They tend to get mushy if they're over-cooked.

Hispanic cooks especially like these crunchy, mild tasting greens. You can use purslane raw in salads, or cook them as a side dish. Look for purslane in Hispanic markets.

This is similar to the guajillo chile, only smaller and more potent. It has a fruity flavor that's good in salsas and stews. They are fairly hot.

Quail grass stems, leaves and young flowers can be cooked and eaten.

With its beautiful coloring and slightly bitter flavor, radicchio is wonderful when combined with other salad greens. You can also use the leaves as a base for hors d'oeuvres, or sauté them for a side dish. The most common variety, radicchio rosso (left), is round, while the treviso radicchio is elongated.

With their crisp texture and peppery flavor, raw radishes are great in salads and on crudité platters. They can also be cut into attractive garnishes. Select firm, fresh-looking radishes and store them in your refrigerator for no more than a week.

These have a peppery flavor, and they're great raw in salads and sandwiches, or you can cook them as you would other leafy greens. The leaves are fairly pungent, though, so a little goes a long way. The greens from young plants are best.

These have a strong onion-garlic flavor which tends to linger on the breath. Despite their humble Appalachian origins, ramps tend to be pricey and are usually found in gourmet produce markets. They're available from March to June.

These are for the rare cook who's intrepid enough to cure olives from scratch. Do not eat them raw.

Red cabbage tastes just like green cabbage, so your choice between them depends largely on which color you prefer. One problem with red cabbage, though, is that the color tends to bleed and discolor surrounding foods. Select heavy heads of cabbage that have shiny leaves.

This has a pungent, peppery flavor that adds zip to salads. You can cook it, too.

These are sweet enough to eat raw, and they're often used to add color to salads. They're also excellent grilled or lightly cooked. Varieties include the sweet red Italian onion, Italian red onion, creole onion, and red torpedo onion.

This beautiful mushroom, unfortunately, loses its red coloring when cooked.

These waxy potatoes hold their shape after they're cooked, so they're great for making potato salads and scalloped potatoes. Don't mash them--you'll end up with a sticky, gooey mess.

This large, roundish avocado slips easily from the peel, and has excellent flavor and texture. It will stay firm even when ripe, so it's not a good choice if you're making guacamole.

Though a vegetable, rhubarb is treated more like a fruit, and it's typically made into such things as pies, tarts, preserves, and wine. It's very tart, and at its best when combined with berries. Varieties includes cherry rhubarb and the more delicate strawberry rhubarb. Fresh rhubarb shows up in markets in the spring. If you can't find it fresh, frozen rhubarb is a fine substitute. Don't eat rhubarb leaves; they contain high levels of oxalic acid, a toxin.

This is more like a leak than a garlic and shouldn't be confused with rocambole garlic.