Saturday, November 2, 2013

Cooking: Parsley vs Cilantro/Coriander - Visual Aid

So the other day I learned about parsley because I meant to buy cilantro. I just figured it was a different name like coriander since I bought it in an asian mart where they do not always use the proper names. Fortunately, I was splitting my vegetables with my mom since I cannot eat all the vegetables that come in bunches (parsley, green onion, spinach, napa). She was surprised that I bought parsley which I said I was going to use with guacamole or salsa, then she started laughing that I bought the wrong vegetable. Sigh... at least someone had a good time out of my misfortune. In retrospect, I'm surprised she knew what I was talking about since I've never seen her make salsa or guacamole.

Of course later, I went online to see the difference and to my newbie eyes... they still looked the same to me! After staring at it for a while, I thought I figured out the difference. A few days later, I went to buy cilantro because I still needed them with the avocados that I bought. Of course at the supermarket, they didn't organize the signs with the vegetables. It was like the world was testing me... and the world won.

I was staring... and staring. I thought parsley had slightly larger leaves. After some more staring and nervous now that someone might think that I was crazy staring at the two for so long, there started to look the same again. So I chose the one that appeared closest to the cilantro sign which smelled like cilantro... at least I thought that was the smell of cilantro. Then when I checked out, I noticed on the receipt that it said parsley. Oh no...

I still had some parsley leftover, and I am seriously blind to the differences. Then I checked again online, and I found this nice site on Better Recipes which gave a great tip that Parsley had pointy leaves while Cilantro had curvy leaves. So I had ended up buying the correct one (the second time around). Parsley went very well with my chicken soup which I am think I am getting better at. I haven't quite figured what to do with the liver and heart they leave for you in the whole chickens.


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