The Best Vegetable You’ve Never Tried

[elleng]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/dining/06appe.html?hpw

[japple]

1. What a coincidence. I'm cooking one now. Since I'm going to

take some to a friend, I'm boiling it in the old standard way, but I love the author's suggestion of roasting it. That's the way I'll do it next time, maybe with pearl onions, or maybe I'll try grating it for a slaw. They are--the good ones anyway (and it's hard to tell until you've peeled and cut it) are sweet, crunchy, with a bit of a bite.

[elleng]

3. What's the old standard way?

Roasting certainly SOUNDS good to me!

[japple]

5. Boiled and mashed, salt and pepper. My mother used to add

bacon grease, but I just used a little chicken Better Than Boullion. It is Deeelicious. I've also cooked it with potatoes, then drained, added butter and milk and mashed as for mashed potatoes. That's good too.

[elleng]

6. THX. What would you say is the 'basic' flavor?

[japple]

7. It's much like a turnip. n/t

[Tesha]

2. blech!

husband likes it too... but really! it's nasty!

nasty - nasty - nasty

[elleng]

4. Without belaboring the point,

but what's nasty about it?

ps, didn't your mother ever tell you NOT to make that kind of face/sound as the dinner table????

:rofl:

[Tesha]

11. So *THAT'S* what happened!

She always told me it would get stuck that way! :rofl:

By the way, Mr. Tesha's rutabaga prep method is to slice
"along lines of latitude" into slices about 3/4 inch
thick and then trimming the skin and that nasty whitish/
greenish layer off the slices by cutting each slice as
though it should be a ten- or twelve-sided polygon; that
is, by making a series of straight cuts along "chords"
of the slices.

For New England Boiled Dinner, it goes in just like that.
For other recipes, the slices may then get cubed.

He does it all with our big kitchen prep knife, although
he's threatened them with the meat cleaver every so often ;)...

Tesha

[Applepie]

8. Yum

I too have become a rutabaga fan. I eat them in place of potatoes they aren't as starchy as the potato. Make sure to peel the entire layer of skin off to avoid the strong taste. If you cut it in half before peeling you can see the layer of skin.

[elleng]

9. 'Strong' like what?

[Callalily]

10. I LOVE rutabaga

The other weekend I roasted rutabaga, turnips, carrots, red onion in a little olive oil and Italian spices. Super yummy!

I also like rutabaga steamed and mashed with a little added butter/salt/pepper.

It's a very misunderstood vegetable! ;)

[Warpy]

12. There was a food column in the Boston Globe many years ago

about the vestiges of Puritanism that afflict New Englanders in the begging of every new year when the sale of rutabaga has a huge spike. Newly penitent people can't get enough "bashed 'nip."

I really dislike the taste of turnip, that musty, bitter stuff that seems to hang on a tonsil with every swallow. Kudos to this author for finding ways to make it more palatable instead of just cooking it to death and mashing it up.

The only way I like turnip is in a mixed veggie soup. Then the flavor adds an interesting undertone. It's just a bit much by itself, even roasted with soy sauce until it's well caramelized.

[elleng]

13. So its the same as or related to turnip?

[Warpy]

15. It's a yellow turnip

that grows about four times as large as the purple topped variety that usually grace supermarket shelves, although those also grow that large if allowed to.

[annabanana]

22. Yet if you google image "rutabaga" they are purple. .

??

[hippywife]

14. I post this every time the topic of root veggies comes up.

This recipe posted by supernova intrigued me to try them for the first time and is STILL my favorite way to eat them, except the parsnips. I sub in turnips in their place. Turnips are not musty or bitter. When roasted this way they are sweet and delicious!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=236&topic_id=39224

Thank you once again, supernova! :hug:

[elleng]

16. Very good!

Time for a sweet potato!

[annabanana]

23. That sounds wonderful

THANKS!

[Frosty1]

17. The best (for me) way to prepare it

boil it with potatoes and carrots. Add butter, milk, salt, and pepper. Mash just like mashed potatoes. It's heavenly served with pork

[Arkansas Granny]

18. It's been a while, but I have cooked rutabagas before. My kids liked them when

I cut them into bite sized pieces, steamed them until tender and added them to a cream sauce. I always used them interchangeably with turnips. You just have to be careful not to get a pithy one as they are invariably bitter and won't cook up tender.

[TreasonousBastard]

19. All Hail the Holy Rutabaga! Food of the Gods! I boil or...

steam them, but this roasting idea sounds really, really good.

(Maple syrup, eh...)

[REACTIVATED IN CT]

20. I can't read or hear about rutabaga without thinking of

Frank Zappa's "Call Any Vegetable". Rutabaga-ah-ah, Rutabaga-ah-ah,Rutabaga-ah-ah.

[kestrel91316]

21. OMG, I must be psychic. I took a wild-assed guess about what the vegetable in

question was, without reading the article or any of the posts on this thread, and I knew it just had to be something weird like RUTABAGA, lol. I was right. And it's about the only vegetable I've never had (that's commonly sold in US grocery stores).