Vegetables
Vegetables from the Ribera market gardens
Italian frying peppers, Chinese cabbage, aubergines and squash, picked in the Ribera market gardens under the same system as the fruit: cut the day we prepare your order, not before. Vegetables reward this even more than citrus does, because they lose freshness within days.
What’s available right now
This list moves around more than the fruit one. The market garden changes every few weeks, so what you see published is what’s available; if something isn’t there, it’s either not ready yet or its moment has passed.
The Italian frying pepper
Long, thin-skinned and sweet-fleshed, it’s the classic green frying pepper. It holds up in the pan and never turns bitter. It goes with grilled meat and fish, into a sofrito and, cut into strips, into an omelette.
Chinese cabbage
Tender leaves and crisp ribs, much milder than curly cabbage and without its bitter edge. It works raw in a salad, finely shredded, and takes a fast, high-heat stir-fry beautifully. It’s one of the best-value vegetables here: one head does several meals.
Aubergine
Firm, with taut skin. Roasted, griddled or in escalivada; stuffed, too. Don’t keep it too cold: aubergine pits in the fridge sooner than people think.
The squash
We grow two. Butternut squash — the long one — has dense, sweet flesh with few seeds: excellent roasted, in soup and in purée. The sweet roasting pumpkin is the round one of always, with more water and a gentler sweetness. Both keep for weeks if stored whole somewhere cool and dry.
What to expect from market-garden veg
That not every piece is the same size, that some soil comes along for the ride and that the outer leaf isn’t perfect. None of that affects what’s inside; it’s the difference between a vegetable picked this week and one graded and washed for a supermarket shelf.
Since it’s cut to order, the sensible thing is to order for the week rather than the month: with vegetables, freshness shows within three days.
How to store vegetables
The general rule: the more leaf, the less it keeps. Chinese cabbage and peppers do better in the bottom of the fridge, in a cloth or a paper bag rather than sealed plastic. Aubergine, somewhere cool but not very cold. Whole squash, out of the fridge; once cut, covered and chilled.
Formats and delivery
Fruit comes in 15 kg boxes, except mandarins, which come in a 5 kg box. Everything is picked the day we prepare your order and leaves our warehouse in Albalat de la Ribera straight for your door, with no warehouses or distribution centres in between. Delivery takes 24-48 hours in mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands; for now we don’t reach the Canary Islands, Ceuta or Melilla.
If you want several things in one delivery, order them together and tell us in the order notes how much of each you’d like. And if anything arrives in poor condition, write to us and we’ll sort it out: we work with fresh produce and the journey sometimes takes its toll.