Recipes starting with V

The roots tend to merge into a short, conical root-stock or erect rhizome, the development of which often proceeds for several years before a flowering stem is sent up, but slender horizontal branches which terminate in buds are given off earlier, and from these buds proceed aerial shoots or stolons, which produce fresh plants where they take root.

Only one stem arises from the root, which attains a height of 3 or 4 feet. It is round, but grooved and hollow, more or less hairy, especially near the base. It terminates in two or more pairs of flowering stems, each pair being placed at right angles to those above and below it. The lower flowering stems lengthen so as to place their flowers nearly or often quite on a level with the flowers borne by the upper branches, forming a broad and flattened cluster at the summit, called a cyme.

The leaves are arranged in pairs and are united at their bases. Each leaf is made up of a series of lance-shaped segments, more or less opposite to one another on each side of the leaf (pinnate). The leaflets vary very much in number, from six to ten pairs as a rule, and vary also in breadth, being broad when few in number and narrower when more numerous; they are usually 2 to 3 inches long.

The margins are indented by a few coarsely-cut teeth. The upper surface is strongly veined, the under surface is paler and frequently more or less covered with short, soft hairs. The leaves on the stem are attached by short, broad sheaths, the radical leaves are larger and long-stemmed and the margins more toothed. 

 The flowers are small, tinged with pink and flesh colour, with a somewhat peculiar, but not exactly unpleasant smell. The corolla is tubular, and from the midst of its lobes rise the stamens, only three in number, though there are five lobes to the corolla. The limb of the calyx is remarkable for being at first inrolled and afterwards expanding in the form of a feathery pappus, which aids the dissemination of the fruit.

The fruit is a capsule containing one oblong compressed seed. Apart from the flowers, the whole plant has a foetid smell, much accentuated when bruised.

It uses its fleshy roots to support itself as it grows. Flowers: greenish-yellow, with a diameter of 5 cm (2 in). They last only a day, and must be pollinated manually, during the morning, if fruit is desired. The plants are self-fertile, and pollination simply requires a transfer of the pollen from the anther to the stigma. If pollination does not occur, the flower is dropped the next day. In the wild, there is less than 1% chance that the flowers will be pollinated, so in order to receive a steady flow of fruit, the flowers must be hand-pollinated when grown on farms.

Fruit:  produced only on mature plants, which are generally over 3 m (10 ft) long. The fruits are 15-23 cm (6-9 in) long pods (often incorrectly called beans). They mature after about five months, at which point they are harvested and cured. Curing ferments and dries the pods while minimizing the loss of essential oils. Vanilla extract is obtained from this portion of the plant.

Artemisia absinthium is a herbaceous, perennial plant with fibrous roots. The stems are straight, growing to 0.8–1.2 metres (2 ft 7 in–3 ft 11 in) (rarely 1.5 m, but, sometimes even larger) tall, grooved, branched, and silvery-green. The leaves are spirally arranged, greenish-grey above and white below, covered with silky silvery-white trichomes, and bearing minute oil-producing glands; the basal leaves are up to 25 cm long, bipinnate to tripinnate with long petioles, with the cauline leaves (those on the stem) smaller, 5–10 cm long, less divided, and with short petioles; the uppermost leaves can be both simple and sessile (without a petiole).

Its flowers are pale yellow, tubular, and clustered in spherical bent-down heads (capitula), which are in turn clustered in leafy and branched panicles. Flowering is from early summer to early autumn; pollination is anemophilous. The fruit is a small achene; seed dispersal is by gravity.

It grows naturally on uncultivated, arid ground, on rocky slopes, and at the edge of footpaths and fields.

It is of moderate size to large tree. The height ranges from 15 to 30 meters. The stem is stout and crooked with widely spreading branches. The bark is thick and dark brown to grey in colour. Leaves are compound and imparipinnate. Leaflets are 5-7, coriaceous, oblong, obtuse, emarginated or even bilobed at the apex and glabrous on both surfaces. The petioles are round, smooth and waved from leaflet to leaflet, 5 or 6 inches long and there are no stipules. Panicles are terminal and very large; ramifications are bifarious, like the leaves. Peduncles and pedicals are round and a little downy. Bracts are small, caduceus, solitary below each division and subdivision of the panicle. The flowers are very numerous, white, with a small tinge of yellow. Vexillum is with a long, slender claw, very broad; sides reflexed, waved, curled and veined; keel is two pettled, adhering slightly for a little way near the middle, waved, etc., same as the vexillum. Stamens are 10, united near the base, but soon dividing into two parcels of 5 each; anthers are globose and 2-lobed. Ovary is oblong, pedicelled, hairy, generally 2-celled; cells are transverse and 1­seeded. Style is ascending. The legume, which is borne on a long petiole, is three-fourths orbicular, the upper remainder, which extends from the pedicel to the remainder of the style, is straight, the whole surrounded with a waved, veiny, downy, membraneous wing, swelled, rugose, woody in the center, where the seed is lodged and not opening; generally one but sometimes 2-celled. Seeds are single and reniform