The catch-all tag for the everyday vegetables that flavour and bulk a dish — carrot, celery, peppers, greens, squash and roots — where no single one defines it.
Where it comes from
Almost every cuisine has an aromatic vegetable base it starts from, and they are more alike than the distance between them suggests: French mirepoix of onion, carrot and celery; Italian soffritto; Spanish and Latin American sofrito with peppers; the Cajun trinity of onion, celery and green pepper; Chinese ginger and spring onion.
In the atlas this tag marks dishes built on vegetables generally rather than on one named vegetable. Where a dish is really about its onions, its cabbage or its tomatoes, it carries that tag instead.
Varieties
- Aromatic base — Carrot, celery, onion, pepper. Cooked slowly at the start to build the savoury floor of a dish.
- Leafy greens — Spinach, chard, kale, callaloo, amaranth, mustard greens. Minutes for tender ones, much longer for tough ones.
- Squashes and gourds — Pumpkin, courgette, bottle gourd, chayote. Summer types are watery and quick; winter types are dense and sweet.
- Root vegetables — Carrot, parsnip, turnip, swede, celeriac. Sweeten considerably when roasted.
- Peppers — Sweet capsicums, distinct from chilli. Roasting and peeling transforms them.
- Aubergine — A sponge until its cells collapse, then silky. It needs either enough fat or enough time.
In the kitchen
Green vegetables lose their colour to acid and to long cooking. Cooking them fast, uncovered, and in plenty of water keeps them bright; a lid traps the volatile acids that dull them.
Roasting concentrates and browns because water leaves and sugars caramelise; boiling dilutes. Neither is better, but they are not substitutes.
Salting aubergine used to be about drawing out bitterness. Modern varieties are not bitter, and the reason to still do it is that it collapses the cell structure so the flesh absorbs less oil.
Dishes with vegetables
Lecsópepper, tomato and onion stew, often with sausage, eggMadagascarVary amin’ananasoupy rice cooked with greens, often topped with kitozaNigerMiyan kukabaobab-leaf powder soup with dried fish and meat, poured over tuwoSouth SudanBamiaOkra stewed with lamb in tomato sauce
StoempRustic mash of potatoes and vegetables, with sausage.ZambiaChibwantuSweet-sour maize drink thickened and set with wild munkoyo rootPapua New GuineaFish in Coconut CreamFresh reef fish simmered in coconut cream with greens, coastal stapleVegetables is tagged on 705 dishes from 189 countries in the atlas. These notes are written from general knowledge and carry no per-fact citation — see About.