Sunchokes
Posted by Laine on Jan 18, 2008 · Member since Sep 2006 · 216 posts
Has anybody tried these before? I was at my local winter farmer's market last weekend and one of the farmers had sunchokes and beets. I hadn't seen or heard of a sunchoke before so the vendor tucked one in with my beets and I had it sliced in my salad tinight- delicious! I think I'll be going again tomorrow and I'd like to get some but I wondered if anybody has any tips on preparing them or recipes?
For those who don't know of them either they're a root veggie and look like a cross between gingerroot and a potato. Since I ate it raw I thought it tasted like a really mild beet with the texture of a water chestnut.
Ooooh yummy! I sometimes steam them and eat them plain. They are tasty in root soups. Raw with veggie dip they are also very nice. I am interested in recipes with them. Another name for sunchokes in jeruselum artichoke.
Ooooh yummy! I sometimes steam them and eat them plain. They are tasty in root soups. Raw with veggie dip they are also very nice. I am interested in recipes with them. Another name for sunchokes in jeruselum artichoke.
ooh, thanks for the ideas! It was delicious raw. Off topic, I looked at your profile and saw you are a fellow British Columbian! Where are you? I'm in Vancouver. :)
Me too! That makes me want to start a thread to see how many people are around here to have a potluck... *goes and starts new thread*
Sunchokes...are those Jerusalem Artichokes? If so, yes, I've eaten them as a child and they're nice. (Sidebar story follows below). Good in salad or in stirfries (think water chestnut but fresh and with more character).
Sidebar: When I was in 7th grade was when the US was pretending to go metric. I say pretending because instead of just changing the system (like Europe did a hundred or so years ago) and knowing that people would get used to "a kilo of potatoes is about so many", they tried to make people learn conversion tables. Which is complex to say the least, and didn't go very far. Because they still left the Imperial measurements on packages etc. people just didn't bother. But it drove us nuts in school, particularly in math class. For that class our teacher asked us to bring clean packaging, labels etc with metric weights and measures on them. At that time my parents were "nearly" vegetarian (didn't last, not in Iowa) and my mother was buying a lot of "odd" (for Iowa) products. I took the label from a bag of Jerusalem Artichokes to school, among other things, and firmly established my reputation for "weirdness".
I prefer to think of it as "eccentricity".
Me too! That makes me want to start a thread to see how many people are around here to have a potluck... *goes and starts new thread*
Cool! Start it up..... :D
Sunchokes...are those Jerusalem Artichokes? If so, yes, I've eaten them as a child and they're nice. (Sidebar story follows below). Good in salad or in stirfries (think water chestnut but fresh and with more character).
Sidebar: When I was in 7th grade was when the US was pretending to go metric. I say pretending because instead of just changing the system (like Europe did a hundred or so years ago) and knowing that people would get used to "a kilo of potatoes is about so many", they tried to make people learn conversion tables. Which is complex to say the least, and didn't go very far. Because they still left the Imperial measurements on packages etc. people just didn't bother. But it drove us nuts in school, particularly in math class. For that class our teacher asked us to bring clean packaging, labels etc with metric weights and measures on them. At that time my parents were "nearly" vegetarian (didn't last, not in Iowa) and my mother was buying a lot of "odd" (for Iowa) products. I took the label from a bag of Jerusalem Artichokes to school, among other things, and firmly established my reputation for "weirdness".
I prefer to think of it as "eccentricity".
That's an awesome story yabbitgirl! Yes, they're also known as Jerusalem artichokes. I couldn't remember what they were called when I brought them home so I had to look at various websites about root veggies with pictures so I could identify it! I'll definitely be getting more and would love to experiment with them.
:) I am glad to see this thread because I saw these at my local Asian market just yesterday. I passed them twice but I didn't buy any. I guess I'll have to go back and pick up a package.
i love the smokey taste to them. dont overcook them tho or the middles will be slushy, if you are going to use them as a potato sub steam or boil them as you would a small potato in its skin, can be quite sandy and gritty so always give a good going over with a nail brush under running water before you cook them :)
^^thanks for the cooking instructions. I can't wait to try them.