Saturday, January 22, 2011

A Culinary Challenge


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Recently I was at the grocery store, thinking about various random things in my special little way. (Occasionally when I am very quiet N starts asking me what I'm thinking at two minute intervals. It's pretty comical how random and disjointed the thoughts seem when sampled that way.) It occurred to me that turnips are, from what I have read, a pretty easy food to grow and store. However, they're not very popular with home gardeners. Do I have to tell you why? Who eats turnips?

So, I decided to challenge myself to see what I could make of a turnip. I picked out a likely looking sample from the produce section and brought it home. After a week of glancing suspiciously at it from time to time, I picked it up tonight with the intention of searching out a recipe. That is when I discovered that, unfortunately, I am so ignorant of this humble root vegetable that I had in fact plucked a rutabaga from the grocer's bin. (Apparently the two are related, at least.) And it is encased in wax.

Anyone know how to cook a rutabaga?

3 comments:

  1. Ha! Hilarious. I couldn't tell you which is which off the top of my head, so I'm sure I'd have made the same mistake.
    I think I remember cooking them when we had the farm share. I cut them into thick-cut french fry size pieces and boiled them in a little water and ate them with butter.
    Although, I remember reading on the NYTimes.com Food&Wine section this week about a great "root vegetable au gratin" this week.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/health/nutrition/20recipehealth.html?ref=dining

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  2. I think the best way to eat root vegetables is to mix them with potatoes for the first time - say, boil up chunks of rutabaga and potatoes, and then mash them together with butter and cream. That way if you don't like the flavor of the rutabaga, it'll be moderated by the potatoes. But a gratin sounds great too.

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  3. Actually... those both sound good!

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