ugli fruit

wikipedia says this is a natural hybrid someone found growing in jamaica, but given the name and the very effusive website for the grower, i'm not sure i buy it. though it doesn't really matter, because it tastes good. the fruit i got was the size of a big grapefruit, with blotchy orange green yellow skin and tendencies toward floppiness.

the inside looked like a grapefruit made of orange flesh, and tasted like a very very juicy (like, running down your arms) orange with some extra acidity and zing. all four testers appeared to like it. one said it wasn't as good as an orange, but i and possibly one other liked it better.

wheat berries

it's wheat.
it's berries.
it's ... well, no, really, it's wheat, and they call it berries for no apparent reason.

after boiling, soaking, and boiling again, the plain wheat berries were a pleasant chewy blandness, much like oatmeal.

with flavors added, they were pretty decent.
this picture, like the celery root's, is kind of cruddy. sorry. i was trying to get back to the tv in time for figure skating (which ended up being way later, anyway. sadness.) the recipe is from the february 2010 issue of martha stewart living. it's not up on their site yet, but there's a whole feature on walnuts at the end of the magazine. this was a salad of wheat berries, walnuts, dates, celery, and orange juice vinaigrette. quite yummy. it tastes like breakfast, even with the celery. the first bite made me think "candy salad". then it equalized to a more normal porridge-y flavor.

next-day follow-up: people at work liked it, and so did i. and you could probably take the basic idea and mix in just about anything with good results.

celery root

also known as celeriac. wikipedia says it's a kind of celery, and people just use the root part instead of the top part.
it's a rather unprepossessing creature:

the outside smelled vaguely of curry powder. this seemed really random and possibly accidental, but i sniffed them out in a couple of stores and it held true.

the celery root was really hard to cut into. but ... that turned out to be because it was frozen.

the center had a geodelike cavity. don't think this is entirely normal.

raw and plain, it really did taste a lot like mealy celery.

and here's what it looked like prepared:

the picture is so hideous i had to use it. in reality, everything was a peaceful beige color. but i couldn't figure out how to correct for the light with my camera. so the food looks pink.

and now for the flavor ...

it's quite good. on the left, you have a raw salad with fennel and apple (www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Celery-Root-and-Apple-Salad-with-Hazelnut-Vinaigrette-357255 ; note: cut the pieces smaller than i did. there was a lot of chewiness going on.) - it tasted a lot like waldorf salad, with a coleslaw texture. i used walnut oil, because i had it already. i've never had hazelnut oil, so i don't know how much difference it made.

on the right, a cooked puree with a bit of potato and onion (www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Celery-Root-Puree-236200). this tasted like thanksgiving. rich, creamy, and salty, with a celery potato flavor.

baby ginger

let's be honest here.
i have no idea why baby ginger is different from regular ginger. the skin is soft and fresh looking. that's different. there must be some distinctive quality about it, because a recipe called for it specifically. but ... it tasted a lot like ginger to me.
i tried a piece raw and it tasted spicy and maybe not as gingery as i would have thought. but i'll have to do a side-by-side comparison, because i don't think i've ever tried plain ginger.
raw baby ginger (note the adorable monkey shape of this particular piece):

the aforementioned recipe was lo mein on a chinese new year menu. so i got to test out rice stick noodles, too. turns out the size shown below makes the wide noodles they use in thai restaurants. yay!

here's the recipe i used: http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/holidays/lunarnewyear/cantonese_lo/recipes/food/views/Noodles-with-Young-Ginger-237367 for all of the things that go into this, the flavor is surprisingly mild. i substitued char siu sauce (a chinese barbecue sauce) for the oyster sauce. not sure how much of a difference that made. i doubt it's the culprit. for the leftovers, i've been adding more soy sauce, red pepper flakes, and peanuts, and that helps. scrambling in an egg is my next plan.
the finished dish:

bac ha

pasteurized processed cheese

pepino

no, it's not supposed to be brown like that. i took out the middle before eating. should have eaten it the first day i got it.
pepino is a member of the nightshade family, like tomatoes and potatoes and just about everything else edible. it really is fruity, though. it smelled and tasted like a really ripe cantaloupe with a bit of peachiness thrown in (though the peach part was not unanimously agreed upon).

in a salad with tomato, cilantro, and balsamic vinegar:

sounds nice and mediterranean, eh?
not so much. after putting this together, my first thought was "smells funny". it tasted funny, too. the fruit was waaaay better plain.

yuca

credit for the yuca actually goes to jason, who purchased it after i changed my mind. but i helped! and we learned someting useful, so the post goes on.
yuca is the root of the cassava plant. when puchased, it's dark brown and heavily waxed, looking very much like a salami (thanks to aly for the analogy). you have to peel it; due to the wax, a knife would probably work better than a vegetable peeler. the inside is very firm, like a carrot or sweet potato, and creamy white. there's a string that runs down the middle that you have to remove. we halved them horizontally, then quartered them lengthwise and cut at an angle down the center, like coring an apple. that worked great.
then we boiled them for half an hour and fried them until crispy. except for the blackened its of garlic we added too early, they tasted like restaurant yuca. so good. if you like potatoes, you'll probably like this. the flavor is mild and starchy, with a hearty, almost chewy texture and crunchy crust.

plantain

banana blossom

the most beautiful food i've ever cooked. many photos ensue.
lewis provides scale to better characterize the banana blossom:
the first petal (bracht?) filled with pre-bananas. someone told me these are sold canned for cooking on their own. which means an update to the entry will be coming eventually.

before slicing:

sliced:

cooked in a magnificent coconut and vinegar sauce that could be used for practically anything:

kiwano

sweet japanese tomato

i have no idea whether "sweet japanese tomato" is a legitimate subset of the tomato world, but it was slim pickings at the farmers market that week, and i took what i could get. and it worked out darned well.
the tomato was purchased really green and hard (picture a slightly blushed green apple) and ripened in my spice cabinet. when my friends down the street had an impromptu barbecue, i brought it over to try.
we tried a teeny bit fresh, and it was a very meaty tomato with a hint of chive flavor. which sounds strange, but is still true.


then my friend smoked thick slices in the hot smoker (for an hour, give or take) and seared them off on the grill. and the tomato was changed like you would not believe. it became its own sauce, full of flavor and nuance even though it was only cooked with salt and olive oil. we served it on top of grilled potatoes (also plundered from the spice cabinet).

fuyu persimmon

guava

special soda edition: cheerwine and ramune

skyr

skyr! i was so excited about this because i saw it on "bizarre foods, iceland". tried it with milk and sugar like andrew zimmern (ok, he used cream, but they were out in the cafeteria). and i tasted like ... plain yogurt. it's supposed to be made in a cheeselike manner, but there's no way i could have told the difference between this and yogurt. maybe it wasn't authentic? or maybe their beginnings are basically the same? a small mystery for you and me.

cherimoya

mexicola avocado

this one was a winner. it's a small, very thin-skinned avocado. the skin is so thin the girl at the farmer's market said you could eat it. i wouldn't recommend that - has an odd flavor that struck me as bad. tart, maybe? imagine the taste contrast between skin and fruit in plums or kumquats, but not delicious.



but the avocado flesh was good. it tastes more like it came off a tree than your usual buttery avocado. slightly more fruity. and it was so creamy. it made the best avocado on toast. it spread out easily like peanut butter, and was great with sea salt and semi-grainy bread.

chicory endive

black radish

black radishes are one of my food goals for this project. i've been seeing them a lot in fancy food articles. don't think these are the same as the gigantic european ones they mention in the articles, but they were close enough to try.
in a word, they're woody. too firm for the salad i tried them in raw (see next post). and not as flavorful as an everyday radish.

they were really interesting cooked, though. tried just the radish part from this recipe: http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Duck-Foie-Gras-in-Classic-Apicius-Style-in-Sweet-and-Sour-Sauce-with-Black-Radish-Confit it brought out a cabbage flavor in the radishes. kind of like chewy warm coleslaw in a sticky sweet sauce. i don't even know how to describe it. different, but not bad. i kept eating pieces trying to come up with a description. it was a little like that sweet broccoli salad with bacon and raisins they have (had?) at souplantation.

black radish confit:

watermelon radish

as featured on iron chef america, white house edition. how cool is that? they're very sweet and mild and eminently edible. and pretty, too.

broccoli rabe

also known as rapini.

poor broccoli rabe didn't get a fair chance. it's on the list for a do-over. the raw leaf i tried tasted fresh, like a lighter version of your standard greens. seemed like it could be tasty.

but when i started to cook the recipe, i only had half the required amount of broccoli rabe. i thought it would be ok and i'd end up with extra sauce, which is usually a good thing.

not in this case. here we learn that sauteing things in wine adds a very strong wine flavor. and doubling the wine makes an inedible wine flavor.

recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Broccoli-Rabe-with-Pine-Nuts-and-Raisins-233098

also, you have to really really trim these. they're uncomfortably woody even very far up the stalk.

jerusalem artichoke

also called sunchoke and sundry other things. apparently they're the root of a type of sunflower. they're sort of fractal looking. and also kind of like an organic game of jacks.

when eaten raw, they were sweet and crunchy with an unexpected hint of spice, sort of like jicama with a tiny bit of radish. they smelled part like the fridge (naturally, not from long storage) and part like artichoke. rather hard to cut. also, scrub well, because grit hides out in those nooks and crannies.

raw sunchokes:

fried plain, they were sweeter and slightly tender, but definitely al dente. my notes say the flavor was half artichoke, half cooked [something that got erased. sadness].

with tarragon and lemon, they tasted more like artichoke. http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/pan-roasted-sunchokes-artichoke-hearts-lemon-herb-butter.aspx i didn't pan roast because my oven's broken (still), and i just used sunchokes, but the sauce was fantastic anyway. i want to try it on pasta salad. i have exhaustive notes on the cooking process and recipe substitutions, but that feels like tmi.

this did not reheat well. yucky. texture was weird and the lemon flavor disappeared.

sunchokes cooked in a delicious sauce:

gujarati dal

gujarat is a place in india. and dal is lentils. sounds less fancy when explained that way, eh? the recipe is from saveur. i'll post the link later with a picture of the spices,
this dish taught me that i really don't like the smell of curry leaves. the taste of the dal was mild, but i couldn't get over the smell. it reminded me strangely of the smell of burnt cheddar cheese. (note: curry leaves are not included in the yellow curry powder they sell at the standard american grocery store. same name, different creature. i think it's a translational mix-up.)