Adventures with Unusual Vegetables

I was raised vegetarian, so me and vegetables—we go way back. Broccoli, zucchini, eggplant are all old friends. I’ve even warmed up to beets and chard this past year, with a little encouragement and inspiration from some fellow food bloggers.

Occasionally, and with great delight, I meet vegetables I’ve never seen before—exotic and intriguing vegetables. Vegetables I can’t wait to get to know.

My exotic vegetable supplier is Mariquita Farm, one of my favorite booths at the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market. There, husband and wife Julia Wiley and Andy Griffin sell vegetables that entrance—cardoons, rapini, orach. I don’t really know what to do with these things but they are so tempting I can’t resist. I buy them, ask for advice at the booth on how to cook them, and take these intriguing veggies home with me to experiment.

Here are a few of my recent adventures.

ROMANESCO



I found this little guy adorable, peeking out from under its leaves. Romanesco is a member of the same family as cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and collard greens. The name in French means romanesco cabbage (chou romanesco); in German it’s pyramid cauliflower (pyramidenblumenkohl); in Italy, where it is frequently used, it is called both broccoli romanesco and romanesco cabbage.

Is it a cabbage, a broccoli, or a cauliflower? Apparently even plant taxonomists can’t decide where it should be categorized. In truth it looks a bit like a cross between broccoli and cauliflower—light green, but with cauliflower-like flowerets.

One thing is clear—it’s a gorgeous-looking veggie (and appreciated by mathematicians for its fractal forms). Click here for a stunning shot.

When I asked David, at the Mariquita booth, what I should do with this cute little bugger he said two words: “Roast it.” That made sense to me. When I brought it home I sliced it open, drizzled it with my favorite olive oil, sprinkled it with salt, and popped it in the oven (the toaster oven, actually) at 350° for about twenty minutes.



Now, you may take a look and say—hey, you burnt it. The outer leaves are indeed brown, but that was the best part—deliciously crispy and salty in a potato chip sort of way. They were gobbled up quickly. And the center flowerets had a mellow, buttery, nutty taste—better than cauliflower, which can be a little bland I find. This was a glorious new vegetable, and so easy to prepare. I cooked this twice in a week and was sorry when all the romanesco was gone. I hope there’s some at the market this weekend; I am hooked. Cauliflower, broccoli, or cabbage—I don’t care. Romanesco is my new favorite vegetable.

ESCAROLE



Escarole wasn’t entirely new to me. I’ve had it in restaurants, always in salads. At a recent lunch at Zuni, Molly—in town from Seattle with Brandon—ordered a lovely escarole salad with persimmon and pomegranate seeds and shared a taste with me. But I’ve never prepared it at home. I’ve also never seen escarole in anything other than a salad, but Shuna says she cooks it as well. Hearing this intrigued me and when I saw the bin of gorgeously huge escarole heads at the Mariquita booth I couldn’t resist.

Escarole is a type of chicory and belongs to the endive family—along with frisee, Belgium endive, and radicchio. It’s quite common in Italian cooking and was used in ancient times by the Greeks and Egyptians. The ancient Latin name for chicory can be translated as “January plant,” or “winter salad.”

Now I've heard that chicory is added to coffee in parts of the US south, and I was wondering why anyone would put a lettuce-like thing in their coffee, but it seems it is the root that is dried and ground up and added to coffee; the legacy of coffee shortages experienced during the US Civil War.

The type of escarole I brought home is a broad leaf escarole, and when cut open it is quite lovely.



First I tried two different salads with the escarole. I wanted to get a sense of escarole’s slightly bitter flavor, so the first one was relatively simple with avocado and a dressing of olive oil and Meyer lemon juice with flaky Maldon salt sprinkled on top. I could taste the tang of the escarole and it contrasted nicely with the mellow creaminess of the avocado.



My second salad had a bit more going on—sliced radishes, lightly toasted walnut pieces, a bit of fresh cilantro, and my favorite Dijon vinaigrette dressing. This is somewhat of a riff off of Molly’s Spring Salad, which I’ve made so many times I’ve internalized the recipe. I love this escarole version of the salad and wanted to make it every day that week. Plus, it’s just so pretty.



My further adventures with escarole were sad failures. I tried to braise a head—something I’ve heard can be done but my version was not a success. I had hoped it would look like the stunning photo of braised bok choy that Kate posted last year. Did I use a recipe? Nah. Should I have used one? Maybe. My braised escarole turned out soggy and unappealing. Really—you don’t want to see a photo of it (and you can’t ‘cause I didn’t take any—trust me, it’s better this way).

I also tried sautéing the outer leaves of the escarole and mixing it with the raw inner leaves, which is what Shuna says she does with them. Perhaps I should have asked for better directions here as well. It wasn’t as bad as my soggy braise—in fact, the raw and the cooked was a nice interplay—but I think Shuna’s version is probably better than what I did.

But I am keen to try some more escarole. I’ve recently found recipes for different types of escarole soup that I would like to try—one with chicken, the other with lentils. There is definitely more escarole in my future.

TATSOI



When I saw these beautiful greens I was instantly smitten—who can resist something that looks so much like a lilypad pond? My friend Krista, who was at the market with me that day, summed up tatsoi perfectly: I’ve seen it on menus before, but I’ve never really known what it was.

Tatsoi is a member of the family that includes bok choy, mizuna, Chinese cabbage, turnips, and rapini. It is an Asian green, sometimes also called spinach mustard or spoon mustard. Apparently, tatsoi is sometimes used as an alternative to shredded lettuce in the McDonalds menu (?!). But maybe that’s not such a bad thing, tatsoi is good for you—full of vitamins A and C, calcium, and folate.



Since I was really starting from scratch with tatsoi, I turned to the collective online wisdom of Epicurious to help me figure out who to do with my lovely green rosettes. There were a couple of options but I picked two—the first was a recipe for Wilted Asian Greens, which called for tatsoi, mizuna, and pea shoots. The dressing was a standard Asian mixture: soy sauce (I used gluten-free tamari), rice vinegar, freshly grated ginger, and sesame oil. I substituted a bit of honey for the required sugar and added sesame seeds as well. It's a standard, but so good you want to bottle it

The hot dressing then gets poured over the greens, wilting them slightly in the process. It was flavorful yet refreshing—the tatsoi has a slightly stronger taste than bok choy, the tiniest hint of mustard, but it is fresh and crunchy. And this dressing—which is nobody’s news but is delicious—had me practically licking my bowl. I made this three times in a week—using just tatsoi or tatsoi and mizuna. Just think of all the folate I’m getting.



My next recipe, also from Epicurious, was for Tatsoi and Warm Scallop Salad with Spicy Pecan Praline. Not really a recipe I would try on my own, but since I wanted something a little more involved than simply tossing the tatsoi in a dressing, I dutifully went off to buy some scallops.

In this dish the tatsoi gets mixed with avocado and a Dijon vinaigrette and serves as a bed for a scallop that has been dipped in a spicy (cumin and cayenne) flour mixture and sautéed. The whole thing is topped with a nutty pecan praline. I’ll admit that I used some pecans candied in maple syrup with cayenne pepper simply because they were already made (and they are delicious—recipe is here).

When I read the user reviews for this recipe on Epicurious I discovered that few of the other cooks had used tatsoi. “I used mixed greens,” one woman wrote, “because Salt Lake City isn't the culinary capital of the world and no one here has heard of tatsoi.” Another wrote “I have made this salad many times for guests and they are always impressed… I can never seem to find the tatsoi but will keep looking.” While baby spinach would probably work fine, the tatsoi definitely has a stronger texture to stand up to the other, chunkier salad ingredients.



How did it taste? It was quite good—though I agreed with the commenter who said there was too much going on in this dish. I’d skip the praline next time. I even thought it was good without the scallop, as that’s how I had the leftovers the next day. I think a bit of mango would be amazing in this—the sweet, tart flavor playing off the creamy avocado and the spicy other flavors. Yum, yum.

Wilted Asian Greens
Tatsoi and Warm Scallop Salad


The moral of the story? Next time you see an unusual and unfamiliar vegetable at the market, pick it up and get to know it. You might just make a new friend.

All vegetables from Mariquita Farm, available at the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market and through their CSA program.