Author: Scoffo
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Watercress
Watercress is a close relative of the nasturtium and also related to mustard. It’s cultivated for its green, peppery-tasting leaves. It’s commonly used in salads or in soup. It makes a nice edible garnish too.
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Greek salad
Greek salad is a fresh and simple salad consisting of tomatoes, cucumber, olives and feta cheese, often enhanced with various herbs. In Greece it’s called khōriattikisalata, which means ‘country-Attic salad’; it’s named after Attica, an area encompassing Athens.
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Gravadlax
Gravadlax, also known as gravlax, is a Scandinavian dish consisting of fresh, raw salmon fillet marinated with salt, sugar and dill. Once cured, it’s sliced thinly. It originated as a means to preserve fish in the days before refrigeration. The fish was prepared with salt and dill and then buried in the ground. (‘Grav’…
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Bhaji
A bhaji, sometimes called ‘bhajia’, is an Indian snack. It’s a vegetable fritter. For example, you could have cauliflower bhajis, aubergine bhajis or, the most common in British Indian cuisine, onion bhajis. The word ‘bhaji’ is Hindi for ‘vegetable’. It’s easy to make by slicing the vegetables and coating them in a batter of gram…
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Asparagus
Asparagus, a herbaceous perennial plant, is generally considered to be a luxury vegetable. Quite simply, it’s expensive to buy because it’s expensive to cultivate. A newly planted asparagus plant takes three years to produce spears that are good enough to sell. Then it will only produce spears for a further three years. Therefore, a typical asparagus…
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Water chestnut
The water chestnut (sometimes called Chinese chestnut) is not a nut at all. It’s an aquatic vegetable that grows, under water, in marshes. It’s native to Asia, and is grown in many countries for its edible corms (swollen underground plant stems, like tubers). Most of us in the West will only ever have seen the…
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Guacamole
Guacamole is an avocado-based dip or salad. It was first created by the Aztecs in what is now Mexico. As well as its use in modern Mexican cuisine, it’s widely eaten throughout the UK, North America and Australia and other countries. Israel, where avocados are widely grown, has its own version called ‘salat avocado’. Traditionally…
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Pomegranate
Pomegranates originate from Persia, but are now mainly grown in Spain, the Middle East, and America. They’re round, about the size of an apple, with a hard, shiny, red skin, which is inedible. Inside the fruit you’ll find countless little edible seeds, each of which is contained in a jewel-like sac of sweet juice. The…
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Beetroot
What is it? Beetroot is the taproot portion of the beet plant, often known as simply the beet. The leaves are also edible, often called beet greens. British beetroot is usually available from July to January, but some may linger on until February or March. Choose firm beetroot with fresh (unwilted) stalks. What to…
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Avocado
The mild-flavoured avocado pear – these days often shortened to simply ‘avocado’, and sometimes also known as the alligator pear or the butter pear – is technically the fruit of the avocado tree (and unrelated to true pears) but is commonly used as a vegetable. (Sainsburys, who in 1962 were the first supermarket chain to…