This week I did my grocery shopping at Berkeley Bowl, a local supermarket specializing in high quality, local foods and produce. Parking at Berkeley Bowl is akin to scoring tickets to the Stones and travelling back in time to watch them perform before Mick Jagger had grandkids and Keith Richards started falling out of palm trees. OK, so I’m exaggerating a little, but you do need a lot of patience as Berkeley Bowl is a very popular place to shop.
Despite the maddening crowds, I like going to Berkeley Bowl every so often to peruse their enormous produce section. They tend to carry a variety of fruit and veg that you’d often find only at ethnic markets, such as Armenian cucumbers and a pretty good variety of Chinese greens. Whenever I go, I try to buy at least one vegetable or fruit that I’ve never tried before, even if I have no idea what it is or how to prepare it. Sometimes a fellow shopper or an employee will offer advice as to traditional methods of preparation.
The photo at the top of this post illustrates most of the unusual vegetables I bought this week. They include, from left to right:
- Tindora cucumbers—These are related to the ordinary cucumber, with a sort of cucumber-zucchini flavor. You’re supposed to cook them before eating. Their flesh looks like that of a tiny cucumber, sort of opaque white. If they’re red on the inside, they’re overripe and should be discarded. Tindora cucumbers are native to Indian cuisine, and are often cooked in curries.
- Edible roses—These miniature roses were just too cute not to buy. You can use them in salads, or as a garnish. I turned them into dessert. Stay tuned for the recipe later this week.
- Sea beans/sea pickle—These are thin, green plants that look like tiny cacti and taste like the sea. Good for salads.
- Yin choy—Chinese spinach. I was won over by the lovely purple-green hue of this vegetable. I’m always curious about the myriad Chinese greens I find at Berkeley Bowl and Chinese markets, but I don’t often know what to do with them. Bok choy, tatsoi, and choy sum are fairly well known items on Chinese restaurant menus, but all those other greens are rather mysterious to those who are otherwise uninitiated in the endless splendor of traditional Chinese cuisines. I often try to buy a bunch of unknown greens and figure out what to do with them later. They look so pretty and succulent on the shelf, there’s no way I couldn’t buy some.
- Nagaimo—Japanese mountain yam. A Berkeley Bowl employee told me this vegetable is eaten raw in Mexico, sliced and seasoned with a little salt and fresh lemon juice. “Like jicama,” he said. This is a peculiar looking vegetable, sort of radish-like but with rough little brown “hairs” on its skin.
- Breadfruit—In the photo below, you’ll see the breadfruit I found at the exotic fruit section. I had no idea how to choose one, so I picked one up and smelled the stem. It smelled faintly of bananas. Cutting it open at home, I realized it was underripe. A Google search informed me that this is the fruit’s ideal state. In Africa, breadfruit is roasted whole in a fire and eaten with butter and salt, like potatoes. It might also be simmered in coconut milk by itself or with pieces of smoked pork.
Here’s how I prepared the breadfruit:
I roasted the breadfruit halves in the oven at 375° F until they were lightly golden. I then separated the flesh from the skin, which I chopped into large, bite-sized pieces. The breadfruit chunks went into a small pot, were covered with coconut milk (about 3/4 of a can), and simmered until the coconut milk boiled.
Seasoned with salt and pepper, breadfruit in coconut milk is a satisfying, rich side dish. The breadfruit is starchy, like potatoes, but with a firmer flesh. Its flavor is mild and slightly sweet, and which the coconut milk complements nicely.
