Recently, I have increasingly come across miniature versions of familiar vegetables, the so-called baby or mini-vegetables: zucchini, fennel, peppers, eggplants, various cabbages, corn, carrots and much more (about 45-50 varieties). From appetizers and salads to main courses, baby vegetables are popping up everywhere today. They make the dish more appealing, especially when used raw.
Most often baby vegetables are harvested before they are fully grown. Some of them are specially cultivated mini-versions of vegetables we are used to. Sometimes they are just hybrids of different species.
Baby vegetables have a more concentrated taste than their larger counterparts. Mini fennel, for example, has a more pronounced anise flavor. And miniature leeks have a subtle sweetish flavor and are not as stringy as regular leeks. The dwarf yellow squash, which resembles a small flying saucer, has a pungent olive oil flavor. And dwarf zucchini is much sweeter than ordinary ones.
Their delicate consistency makes their shelf life shorter and assembly methods more labor intensive. Therefore, as a rule, mini-vegetables are more expensive than their larger counterparts.
In home cooking, you can replace large counterparts with mini-vegetables. For example, instead of baking a large zucchini, I like the mini version more, which is much tastier and crunchy. You can also decorate dishes with mini-vegetables, or feed children. Still, small carrots, peppers and tomatoes are much more fun than chopped large vegetables.
In Moscow, some types of mini-vegetables can be bought at Azbuka Vkusa, Perekrest, in the markets, and in my favorite Fruit Mail there is a whole section with mini-vegetables.