In message , "David
(Normandy)" writes

"K" wrote in message
...
JennyC writes

"David (Normandy)" wrote in message
.. .
I feel a bit silly asking, but can anyone tell me what seeds I've bought
(in English)?
I don't know what these vegetables are. The sowing and cultivation
instructions seem simple enough, but I don't actually recognise what
these
veg are let alone how to cook or prepare them after they've grown?

http://www.avisoft.co.uk/HPIM5546a.JPG

David.



Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa) :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_cabbage
Good as a stir fry or steamed. Can also be used to wrap around filling
rice/meat/fish)

I think Stewart was right with Chard - the picture is absolutely right for
Swiss Chard.

The green of the leaves need less cooking than the thick white stems, so
best to treat them separately. Green - rinse, put in pan with no extra
water, very low heat for a few minutes. Stems - shop, lightly cook as any
other green veg.
--
Kay

Thanks. So that begs the question are Swiss Chard and Chinese cabbage
sufficiently close in culinary terms to be treated interchangeably or is it
worth while buying both? The seed display had at least 10 different greens
that looked very similar to these, in fact I think there was one actually
marked up with the French equivalent of 'Chinese cabbage - chou chinois'.
There was even a purple variety of chard/cabbage.

David.

Chard and cabbage are distant taxonomically speaking. Chard is a beet
(genus Beta, family Chenopodiaceae), and related to things like spinach,
amaranth and good-king-henry; cabbage is in Brassicaceae.

This doesn't necessarily means that it's not treated similarly
culinarily (but see Kay's post) - lettuce, for example, is also distant
from either of the other two - but they'll have different secondary
metabolites, and presumably different tastes in consequence.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley