Vegetables Category

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.

This is more commonly found in Europe than in the United States.

This is a small, sweet, mild pepper that looks like someone stepped on it. It's fruity-tasting like a habanero, only not nearly as hot.

These very hot chiles look like tiny bell peppers and have black seeds. They have an interesting fruity flavor.

Romaine combines good flavor and crunch, plus it has a decent shelf life in the refrigerator. It's the preferred green for Caesar salad. Green romaine is the most common variety, but you can sometimes find red romaine, which is more tender.

This Italian heirloom eggplant has sweet, mild flesh and a creamy texture. They're hard to find, but knowing cooks scoop them up whenever they're in season.

This is large brown Greek olive is brine-cured.

These potatoes are high in starch and low in moisture, so they bake well and yield light, fluffy mashed potatoes. They don't hold their shape after cooking, so don't use them to make potato salads or scalloped potatoes. Don't wrap them in aluminum foil while baking them; the foil traps moisture and makes the potato mushier.

Rutabagas look like turnips, only they're a bit larger and have a yellow complexion. Use them just as you would turnips.

When cooked, salsify has the taste and texture of an artichoke heart. There are two types: white salsify (pictured at left) and the more highly regarded black salsify = scorzonera = black oyster plant = viper grass. After peeling salsify, put it into acidulated water right away to prevent it from turning brown. Canned salsify is a good substitute for fresh, but it's hard to find.

Nama wakame is Japanese for "raw seaweed." Look for bags of this heavily salted seaweed in Japanese or Korean markets.

Thai cooks like to add these squat green beans to stir-fries. They have a strong, somewhat bitter flavor.

This tomato isn't as juicy as other tomatoes, which gives it a more concentrated flavor that works well in sauces and stews. These are also the best tomatoes for drying. You may want to remove the bitter seeds before cooking these tomatoes, but save the gel that surrounds the seeds--it's rich in flavor. Varieties include the roma tomato = Italian tomato = Italian plum tomato and saladette tomato. Sauce tomatoes are most flavorful in the summer. During the rest of the year, many cooks prefer canned tomatoes over the bland and mealy fresh tomatoes they usually find in markets.

Savoy cabbage is like ordinary cabbage, but with a milder flavor. It can often be used in place of green cabbage, and your dish will probably be the better for it.

This is like a pattypan squash, only it's greener and rounder.

This extremely hot pepper is almost indistinguishable from the habanero, except that it's a bit smaller and has a fruitier flavor. It's popular in the Caribbean.

Sea grapes small stalks of green seaweed with grape like balls popular in Asia. They are usually eaten raw and taste like the sea. Sea grapes add a umami flavor to dishes.

Sea moss is a type of frilly seaweed that grows in tidepools. Sea moss grows in a variety of colors and It can be eaten on its own or used as a thickener. It is often sold as a gel. Many people believe sea moss has medicinal qualities.

Most of us unknowingly eat processed sea vegetables every day. Manufacturers use them as thickeners and stabilizers in such products as ice cream, instant pudding, whipped toppings, salad dressings, and even toothpaste. But unprocessed sea vegetables haven't caught on much outside of Asia. It's a shame, since they're dense with vitamins, minerals, and protein, yet low in calories. You can usually find plastic bags of dehydrated sea vegetables in health food stores, or in the Asian foods section of larger supermarkets. After rehydrating, chop them up and add them to salads, soups, stews, or stir-fries

These crisp, salty sprigs make terrific garnishes. They're sometimes available fresh in the summer. If not, look for a pickled version in specialty food shops. These grow along the English coast.

These have thin walls, so they don't need to be charred, steamed, and peeled before using. They are moderately hot. When dried, this is called a chile seco.

This is a large, green, brine-cured olive.

Australians use the term shallots to describe green onions, but to Americans, shallots are shaped like small brown onions with papery brown skins. They have a more delicate, garlicky flavor than other cooking onions, and are a common ingredient in French sauces. Many people find them too hot to eat raw. They're available year-round.

Though shiitake mushrooms are now cultivated, they have the earthiness and flavor of wild mushrooms. They're large and meaty, and they work well in stir-fries, soups, and side dishes, or as a meat substitute. Dried shiitakes are excellent, and often preferable to fresh due to their more intense flavor. Soak them in water for about thirty minutes to reconstitute them, then use the water they soaked in to enhance your sauce.

Like matsutake mushrooms, these grow on trees. They're very tasty, with a peppery flavor. They're great in stir-fries.

This Japanese chile is very sweet and mild with a grassy flavor. It's about two inches long.

These are large with purple stripes. They have thin skins and a subtle flavor.

These are large, green, sour olives that are usually marinated with herbs. They sometimes pitted and stuffed with pimento, garlic, or jalapeño pepper.

These large tomatoes are best for sandwiches and grilling. Varieties include the beefstake tomato and oxheart tomato. The red varieties tend to be more acidic than the yellow.

With most beans, you eat only the seeds, usually after they've been dried. But you can eat snap beans pod and all. Until a century ago, the pods had tough strings that cooks had to pull off before cooking (hence the name "string beans") but the snap beans you'll find in markets today are almost all stringless. To learn about different varieties of snap beans, click here.

You eat these whole, pod and all. They're often stir-fried very briefly (no more than a minute), but they're also good raw. They're easy to prepare, just wash and trim the ends. Some people string them as well, but that's not necessary. Select crisp, flat snow peas that snap when you break them.

Look for these in Asian markets.

Softneck garlics do not have the main stem in the bulb and are the type commonly sold in stores. They are milder and last longer. Softneck garlics include purple stripe, green garlic, Italian garlic, California garlic and others.

This sour herb is quite popular in France. They like to cook it briefly and make a purée out of it, which they ladle over eggs, fish, meat, and other dishes. It can also be served raw in salads.

These sturdy, crunchy sprouts are good in salads or stir-fries. They become bitter when the tails get too long, so eat them soon after they sprout.

After it's cooked, you can dig a fork into the flesh of a spaghetti squash and pull out long yellow strands that resemble spaghetti. Though they taste like squash, the "noodles" can serve as a low-calorie substitute for pasta.

These are similar to yellow onions, only larger and a bit sweeter.

Spinach is packed with nutrients, and it's quite versatile. You can toss it raw into salads, or cook it briefly to make a side dish or soup. Of the two main varieties, smooth leaf spinach = flat leaf spinach = salad spinach is more delicate and better suited to salads than curly leaf spinach. Look for spinach with small, narrow stems--they're younger and more tender. And always use fresh spinach if you can; it's much more palatable than frozen or canned spinach.

Some people use the name spring onion as a synonym for green onion, while others use it to refer to a green onion with a partially formed bulb.

This is a mix of different young salad greens. Commercial mixes usually include arugula, mizuna, tat soi, frisee, oakleaf, red chard, radicchio, mustard greens, and radicchio.

Sprouts spring from newly germinated peas and beans. They won't add much in the way of nutrients--or calories--to your diet, but they're tasty and inexpensive. There are many varieties, ranging from mild and crunchy mung bean sprouts to spicy and delicate radish sprouts. Raw sprouts are great in salads and sandwiches, and the sturdier varieties can also be stir-fried briefly.

These onions are available year-round, since their low water content prevents molding during storage. Since storage makes onions more pungent, these onions are usually cooked before eating. This category includes the yellow onion, white onion, red onion, Spanish onion, and Bermuda onion.

These are a common ingredient in Chinese stir-fries. They're hard to find fresh, but canned straw mushrooms work well and are sold in many supermarkets. Better yet, but harder to find, are dried straw mushrooms, which have a more intense flavor than canned.