Dinosaur Food

One of the coolest things about cooking the CSA share each week is that some of the vegetables are new, even to me. Unfortunately, I had lopped off the leaves of these kohlrabis before I snapped a photo. When I first removed them from the box, they looked like a prehistoric plant. An outsized radish, if you will, that, leaves and all, took up an enormous amount of space in my fridge. I had heard of kohlrabi, but if I'd ever seen one, I had probably dismissed it on looks alone.

Some reading taught me that "kohlrabi" is German for "cabbage turnip". Fitting. It tastes like a cabbage, looks like a turnip. To prepare it, I peeled it. The top half peeled rather easily, the bottom half (the root end) was rather tough and fibrous. The leaves, also edible, are suitable for sauteeing like any other type of green. I tasted a bit of raw kohlrabi. One possible preparation method is to shred it up and make a coleslaw type salad with it. It does taste quite like cabbage; some other time I might try that.

So after peeling, I diced up the insides, tossed the pieces with olive oil, salt and some whole garlic cloves and roasted it in the oven at 450 degrees for about 30 minutes, tossing them every now and then. It was easy until my oven broke. It's not a total disaster, I have a double oven: small one on top, large one on the bottom. I think one of the elements in the top oven just gave out, but that was the oven I was using. Of course I didn't realize it until the rest of the meal (grilled chicken breast in a marinade of garlic and Italian seasonings, buttered egg noodles with fresh parsley, and a few plain steamed sugar snap peas also from the farm) was nearly done. The kohlrabi just wasn't ready at dinner time, which kind of skewed the taste test results. Everyone was looking for a little dessert at just the time I was putting the roasted kohlrabi on their plates. Daniel said it tasted like cauliflower stems. I agree. Conrad ate quite a bit and said he enjoyed it. Zachary said he did not like it, but he ate his whole portion. Not a failure, but not a raging success, either.