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Coconut shrimp, courtesy of Flickr user allikazoo

The coconut has long been a staple of cuisine in tropical places. As the trend toward Eastern flavors picks up here in the States, coconut has shown up in many flavor forecast lists for 2010.

The coconut is one of the most useful plants in the world. Some cultures use almost every part of the tree from the leaves to the water inside of the coconut fruit. In fact, the water is sterile, and was used as a intravenous solution in a pinch during World War II. The flesh of the coconut fruit, the fluid inside the coconut, coconut milk (made of liquid squeezed from the coconut flesh) and even the root of the palm, known as hearts of palm, are all eaten. Here are a few ways to enjoy the different parts of the coconut:

1. Batter: Think coconut-breaded shrimp. Use flakes of coconut flesh to coat shrimp and bake or fry. You can also coat other seafood, like tilapia, or try chicken with dried coconut flakes.

2. Salad: Hearts of palm are harvested from the root of a palm tree. Doing this kills the entire tree, so a salad made with the root was once called a “millionaire’s salad.” Today, rather than using coconut palms or other varities, most heart of palm comes from the peach palm—the only palm varietal not to die after its root has been harvested. Hearts of palm have a subtle flavor similar to asparagus or artichoke. Paula Deen has a recipe for a salad with spinach, strawberry and hearts of palm that I can’t wait to try.

3. Curry: Coconut milk is the base for many Thai curries. I make a creamy red curry using red curry paste, a can of coconut milk, chicken and sweet potato. For more information, and some actual recipes, Serious Eats as a nice breakdown of curry type with recipes.

4. Substitute for dairy: While I don’t keep kosher, recipes using coconut milk instead of dairy milk to follow kosher laws are intriguing. Take this Sweet Potato Coconut Crumble from Gourmet Kosher Cooking or these coconut milk scalloped potatoes. Coconut milk can also serve as the base of non-dairy ice creams for those lactose intolerant ice cream lovers. Grist recently reviewed non-dairy ice cream options, and the coconut milk varieties won.

5. Piña Colada: Some snow from the great snow storm of 2010 is still lingering on the ground here in D.C., but it’s already March and spring will be here soon. When it starts to warm up, fix yourself a piña colada and pretend you’re on a tropical beach somewhere. This popular cocktail is made from rum, pineapple juice and cream of coconut, which is derived from coconut milk.

I met a new vegetable recently, and I’m totally infatuated: fennel.

Florence fennel, courtesy Flickr user quinn.anya

I’d heard of fennel, but had never eaten it until I visited my husband’s family for Thanksgiving a couple of years ago. The appetizers included a veggie tray with familiar snacks like peppers, cucumbers, broccoli and baby carrots. But there were also some curved, pale pieces I didn’t recognize, with a celery-like crunch and a pleasant licorice taste.

My husband told me this was called anise (pronounced “ann-iss,” although when they were younger he and his brothers preferred a grosser pronunciation), and that was that. I didn’t realize until later, perusing the produce aisles, that I’d actually eaten fennel! (It’s sometimes mislabeled as anise, a different plant whose seeds are also redolent of licorice.)

I’ve incorporated fresh fennel into many recipes since then, and found it wonderfully versatile. Here are a few ways to use it:

1. Soup: Roughly following this recipe, I made a very simple tomato-fennel soup by sauteeing some chopped fennel (preparation tips here) with onion and garlic in the bottom of a stockpot for 5 minutes, then adding a large can of crushed tomatoes and about 3 cups of water. I let the soup simmer (covered) for 40 minutes or so while preparing the rest of dinner, then used the immersion blender to puree it. I stirred in 1/3 cup of heavy cream right before serving, and garnished each bowl with fennel fronds. With some rustic sourdough bread, it made a delicious appetizer for our dinner. Next, I plan to try Sweet Amandine’s carrot-fennel soup.

2. Salad: I’ve made two variations on fresh salads with fennel so far, and both were big hits. Basically, when you combine slivers of fresh fennel with citrus segments (grapefruits, oranges, and/or clementines) and fresh herbs (including the fennel fronds), you’re on to something great. I also love fresh roasted beets, so I added these in quarters (both red and golden), along with some baby spinach (arugula’s good, too). I tossed this combination with a light dressing made by combining a few tablespoons of the following ingredients to taste: fig-infused vinegar, olive oil, maple syrup, and spicy maple mustard. If you prefer actual recipes, look to Sassy Radish’s fennel tangerine salad or this roasted beet and fennel salad.

3. Gratin: Depending on what ingredients you have, riff off recipes like Ina Gartin’s potato-fennel gratin and Smitten Kitchen’s swiss chard and sweet potato gratin. I had a small yam and a white potato to use up, so I peeled and sliced both, then layered them in a casserole dish with some cooked Swiss chard (chopped and sauteed with garlic, then squeeze-dried a bit) grated Gruyere and fontinella, and a basic bechamel sauce. I topped it all with a few slices of fresh mozzarella, and baked it (covered in foil) for 45 minutes. It was so good that just writing about it makes me want to run home and make more!

4. Roasted: Couldn’t be simpler! Cut a fresh fennel bulb into quarters or eighths, depending on size, toss with olive oil and vinegar, and roast on a baking sheet until tender (try 20 minutes at 400 for starters). Top with grated fresh parmesan and enjoy as a snack or a side dish.

5. Dessert: There aren’t too many vegetables that work well in desserts, but like I said, this one’s versatile. The Washington Post’s recipe finder offers up fennel panna cotta (though you’d probably have to skip the grilled strawberries this time of year), and the blog My French Cooking suggests a mouth-watering candied fennel sponge cake.

Jicama on a fruit truck, courtesy of Flickr user ChazWags

I’ve always like jicama (pronounced HEE-kuh-muh), a starchy, slightly sweet root popular in Mexico. It looks like an ugly brown turnip (and is sometimes called Mexican turnip) and, when raw, has the crunchy texture of a firm pear or a raw potato. Until a few weeks ago, raw was the only way I’d ever had it, usually on a crudité platter or in a salad. It had never occurred to me that it could be eaten cooked—but there it was recently, on a restaurant menu, in a jicama and roasted red pepper risotto. I ordered it out of curiosity, and I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. In the risotto dish it was diced into small pieces and retained some of its crunch, its texture providing a nice counterbalance to the creamy rice.

The experience made me wonder, what other creative ways are there to prepare jicama? It’s not the most nutritious vegetable, but it’s a good source of fiber, potassium and vitamin C.

1. In a Mexican fruit salad. In Los Angeles, where I grew up, Mexican street vendors sell fresh fruit—like mango on a stick—from push carts. But the best thing they offer is a delicious fruit salad, with some combination of chunks of mango, pineapple, jicama, watermelon and cucumbers, seasoned with lime juice and chili powder. The combination of textures and flavors is divine, and beats the heck out of the flavorless melon melanges so many places pass off as fruit salad.

2. Sautéed. I’m guilty of being pretty unimaginative with vegetable side dishes, rotating among a few standard steamed or sautéed veggies that my fiancé and I can agree on—broccoli, green beans, spinach (sadly, I have not found the recipe that will convert him to brussels sprouts—yet). Epicurious suggests a bright-sounding jicama and celery sauté that might enliven the rotation.

3. As a canapé canvas. Perhaps the most surprising recipe I found was one for jicama-date canapés, also from Epicurious. Again, something that never would have occurred to me, though reviewers said it was a cocktail-party hit and a refreshing palate cleanser. I imagine jicama wedges would make a great platform for all kind of toppings, including (judging from my risotto experience) a roasted red pepper spread.

4. In a stir-fry. Jicama has a similar texture to water chestnuts, so it makes sense that it would work well in an Asian stir-fry. Cut it into chunks and throw in anywhere you’d use water chestnuts, or try this Chinese stir-fry recipe at Cooking Crave (in China, apparently, jicama is known as yam bean). I would probably leave out the cuttlefish, mostly because I don’t know where I’d find them where I live, but otherwise it sounds delicious.

5. As mock green papaya. The only salad I might love more than Mexican fruit salad is Thai green papaya salad—the mixture of tangy, sweet, salty and crunchy is the best of all worlds. But where I live, far from an Asian grocer (and far, far away from the tropical climate that produces the fruit) the chances of finding anything but an overripe papaya are slim to none. As Mark Bittman points out, though, jicama makes a pretty good substitute (and travels a lot better than papaya).

Fresh pomegranate, courtesy Flickr user JoeM500

Post-holidays, most people take at least a passing interest in eating healthier. I know I do, anyway. That’s what motivated me to pick up a whole, fresh pomegranate at the grocery store a few days ago—I’d heard that this round, red fruit is a “superfood,” packed with antioxidants and vitamins. Never mind that I hadn’t a clue how to open the thing, let alone prepare it! That’s what the Internet is for…

In case you’re clueless, too, here are a few tips on what to do with fresh pomegranates.

1) This video on Food52, a wonderful recipe-sharing site developed in part by former New York Times food writer Amanda Hesser, shows a simple technique for extracting the pomegranate seeds. Related recipes on the same site include an arugula, pear and goat cheese salad with pomegranate vinaigrette, a cranberry pomegranate compote, and roasted brussels sprouts with hazelnut and pomegranate (mmm, I might make that one tonight).

2) Add an exotic twist to fresh salsa by incorporating pomegranate seeds. I like the look of this kiwi-pomegranate salsa from Simply Recipes, and I bet some chunks of fresh mango would taste great in there, too.

3) The Wednesday Chef has another intriguing idea: carrot soup topped with pomegranate seeds. This recipe also calls for a touch of pomegranate molasses, which you can find at Middle Eastern grocery stores (I even found a few bottles for sale at the falafel shop in my neighborhood) or in the international aisle of larger chain supermarkets. It’s delicious in muhammara, a spread/dip made with roasted red peppers and walnuts.

4) Liven up a grain dish with pomegranate seeds—that could mean simply tossing a handful of them into couscous, or going uber-healthy with this bulgur, celery and pomegranate salad from 101 Cookbooks. They also taste great in hot oatmeal with a drizzle of maple syrup, as I learned this morning!

5) Drink up. You can buy pomegranate juice, but you can also squeeze your own from fresh pomegranates. It tastes good on its own, or mixed into everything from cocktails to smoothies. Food & Wine has a recipe for sparkling pomegranate punch that combines both juice and seeds with Prosecco, and Martha Stewart has a non-alcoholic variation. The doctor/blogger at Basic Eating recommends a simple pomegranate banana smoothie (he also has a related post with general pomegranate information).

That’s five, but here’s a bonus link, to celebrate the new year: the lovely new blog The Cooks Next Door recently had a pomegranate-themed post that includes helpful preparation tips and three recipes, such as chicken with yogurt and pomegranate.

A fresh rutabaga, courtesy of Flickr user jodigreen

The first time I tasted rutabaga—or so I thought—was when I started spending Thanksgiving and Christmas with my fiancé’s family. Bowls of mashed rutabaga, seasoned with salt and pepper and a little butter, are a staple of their holiday table, although some of the cousins turn their noses up at it. With a texture like winter squash and a slightly cabbage-like flavor, I find the dish pleasant enough but unexciting.

I set out to find other ways to prepare the root vegetable, which, it turns out, is a cross between a cabbage and a turnip. It also turns out that a lot of people call it a turnip—which is why I didn’t realize I had tasted it before, albeit mashed with potatoes, when I spent time in Scotland. Neeps and tatties, or mashed rutabaga and potatoes, are a classic Scottish dish.

Here are some other interesting rutabaga preparations I dug up:

1) Do as the Swedes—and Finns—do. In England, the rutabaga is called a swede, or Swedish turnip. Swedes like their swedes much as my future in-laws do—boiled and mashed, sometimes with carrots. But in the next Scandinavian country over, Finns make a slightly jazzier version, called Lanttulaatikko. This casserole adds milk, eggs, nutmeg, molasses and bread crumbs to the rutabaga. To really perk things up (without adding a ton of fat), I like Kevin Weeks’s idea of flavoring the mashed root with maple syrup and bourbon.

2) Add fruit. With its slightly sweet, slightly earthy flavor, I could see rutabaga marrying well with fruit, especially the ones most associated with fall, apples and pears. Apparently the people at Bon Appétit (via Epicurious) agree; they have a scrumptious-sounding recipe for smashed rutabagas with ginger-roasted pears. Sandy Smith, who blogs at Eat Real, tosses rutabaga with caramelized onions and apples.

3) Gratinée it. Starchy vegetables—OK, most vegetables—taste good bathed in cream and baked with a crunchy topping. I usually avoid this sort of preparation, though, because it’s so high in fat, calories and cholesterol. But Cooking Light (via myrecipes.com) has a low-fat version of parsnip, turnip and rutabaga gratin that still sounds delicious.

4) Put it in a soup. If I was looking for zingier ways to prepare rutabaga, I found them in the soup category. Over at The Kitchn, Kathryn Hill devised a creamy rutabaga chipotle soup that sounds like my cup of tea. It calls for a lot of heavy cream, but I suspect it would still be good with quite a bit less. Chow does something similar, but with smoked paprika instead of chipotle, in this rutabaga bisque.

5) Make fries. I’ve heard of sweet potato fries and carrot fries. Apparently you can make rutabaga fries, too. Stephen Smith, a diabetic who loves to cook, devised a healthy recipe for rutabaga oven “fries” baked with rosemary, garlic and olive oil, or other flavors (the garam masala version sounds particularly good).