Ridged gourd or angled loofah. A type of gourd characterised by ten ridges which run its length.
A good vegetable stock can be prepared by simmering celery, carrots, onions, leeks, a clove or two, a bouquet garni and seasoning.
Velde is a creamy, charcoal-coated goat's milk cheese shaped like a truncated pyramid. Affinage is three weeks and it softens with age. It comes from North London.
A variety of persimmon grown in the Philippines, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.
The velvet bolete is an edible mushroom, smooth and dark yellow, found in late summer. (If gathering mushrooms you must be absolutely certain what you have before you eat them as many are very poisonous.)
The velvet swimming crab is one of the largest of the swimming crabs. A small spider crab with sweet, flaky white flesh. It has good flavour but is too small to pick, so is used in soups.
The velvet swimming crab (alternatively velvet crab or devil crab) is the largest swimming crab found in British coastal waters, with a carapace width of up to 100 mm. Although it is large for a swimmer, it has flaky white fish with good flavour but is too small to pick readily, so it is inclined to be used for soups. The body is coated with short hairs, giving the animal a velvety texture, hence the common name. It is one of the major crab species for UK fisheries. It is also found from southern Norway to Western Sahara in the North Sea and north Atlantic as well as western parts of the Mediterranean Sea, on rocky bottoms from the shoreline to a depth of about 65 m.
