Nigella. The small, black, bitter seeds of a relative of "love-in-a-mist". Nigella is often incorrectly called wild onion seed or black onion seed. The seeds have a sharp, pungent flavour with a hint of a smell of strawberries and are used for flavouring confectionary and liquors.
Cottage cheese made from curdled bottled milk, like a cross between Ricotta and tofu. It can be fried and curried.
Taro leaves. Colocasia leaves. Taro is a name used to cover many root crops grown in tropical regions, most commonly Colocassia esculenta. The leaves come from plants cultivated in warm climates both for their leaves and tuberous, potato-like roots, or corms. The roots, the flesh of which may vary from white to pink, have a delicate flavour and can be peeled and boiled, roasted, mashed, fried or included in a stew and look like a pointed swede, often with a ridged surface and protruding roots, with hairy beige or brown skin. They may weigh as much as 2 kg (4ΒΌ lb). The leaves are large and floppy, fan-like and used as a vegetable or in soups. Some varieties of taro grow extra corms which bud on the main corms, or dasheens. These "buds" are known as eddos, particularly in the West Indies. Taro is a good source of high-grade protein. Whole taros with the skin intact are preferable to those that come peeled.
