Root Vegetables

Jicama – Singkamas (Pachyrhizus erosus) also called Mexican yam  or yam bean is native to the Americas.  It grows in a vine and flowers that produces beans that can also be eaten when young but not when it is mature because it contains a poison called rotenone so are the leaves and the vines.  But…

Water Chestnuts/Apulid (Eleocharis dulcis) is one of my favorite ingredients in cooking stir fry dishes.  A mix of vegetables like snow peas, ginger, green bell peppers, carrots, celery with sesame oil will go well with water chestnuts.  This mix  we call chop suey can be used to top noodles or rice. Water chestnuts or apulid,…

Ginger – luya (Zingiber) is a root vegetable used as a spice.  It is a perennial plant and develop flowers but this ginger is different from the ornamental gingers that bears pink and red flowers. I like to have ginger in my garden for my cooking needs.  I even use the leaves for steaming fish…

Taro -gabi (Colocasia Esculenta) is the most widely cultivated among root vegetables.  It is the Hawaiian’s staple food and they call it “kalo”.  Taro or “kalo” has a more deep connection with the Hawaiians.  They preferred taro over sweet potato although taro required more time and labor to grow.  They cook the taro and pound…

Cassava -Manihot Esculenta – is also called manioc, tapioca or Brazilian arrowroot. The Spanish call it “yucca”.  We call it “kamoteng kahoy” in the Philippines. It literally means sweet potato from a tree since cassava grows as a woody shrub  and the cassava forms as roots of the plant unlike the sweet potato that grows…