Thursday, August 22, 2013

QUELTIES or BLEDO - Are these just "greens" or what?

My local ethic market has a nice variety of unusual herbs and vegetables. They have culantro which is not cilantro and several others, one of which is labeled quelites.

This photo is NOT quelites. The produce manager misidentified this. 


Quelites
This is NOT quelites, either.

The 3 pix below are quelites. The cashier said so! And she wouldn't lie.
Quelites blossom or flower?



Quelites seeds or blossoms


Definitely quelites, I suppose.


Try as I may to identify this species of greens, I cannot. It may be, in English, Red Root Amaranth. The amaranth I see at Latin markets has a very different look and odor than this however.

What recipe I could find calls for cooking it for either soup, or omelettes. A quick gloss of the literature suggests draining the cooking water as is would have oxalic acid in it. And while not lethal, it would give a stomach ache on ingestion.

This post is therefore a work-in-progress. For now.