Jerusalem artichokes - dare I?
The taste is sweet and nutty, with a hint of oyster and a dash of soil. Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall
[they] taste very good indeed: sweet, vaguely mushroomy, creamy and nutty" Yotam Ottolenghi
A week or so ago a friend gave me some jerusalem artichokes from her garden. Now I have never eaten them so when she asked if I wanted any I thought it would be interesting to try something new. Then in the way that serendipity plays a role in our lives - today's entry by Nigel Slater in his Kitchen Diaries 3 featured jerusalem artichokes. He was describing a trip to Norway and said that everywhere he went he was given them to eat, and he obviously likes them - and so his recipe for the day was Pot roast pheasant with artichokes and bacon and by artichokes he meant jerusalem artichokes. Well I don't have any pheasant to hand, so I don't think I shall be trying that, though I guess you could try it with the more available duck. Not that my husband likes duck, so we won't be doing that either.
As you can see from the picture above they look like ginger. Indeed I reckon you could confuse the two - in looks anyway. And like ginger they would be difficult to peel. And indeed they are.
"There is no getting away from the fact that some kitchen jobs just are simply chores to be done, and peeling a pile of these knobbly tubers is one of them." Yotam Ottolenghi
And if you do peel them you must put them into acidulated water straight away or they will discolour.
And you will read everywhere that they are not artichokes at all. Their name, they think, comes from the taste - for the artichoke bit - it's said to be similar - and a corruption of the Italian 'girasole' which means sunflower. Because like sunflowers, their yellow daisy like flowers turn towards the sun. This in turn seems to have been changed to sunchokes in some parts of America.
So I thought I would look through my repertoire of cook books to find interesting things to do with them. For they are also very fashionable at the moment. The vegetable du jour as somebody said. And I found quite a few - which I will come to in a moment. However, in the process I came across warnings of varying degrees of seriousness about the ill effects of eating them - namely flatulence and diarrhoea. So now I'm not sure whether I want to risk it at all! It comes from high levels of a chemical called inulin. As the Guardian says:
"the uniquely delicious slightly sweet flavour of the tuber is due in large part to the presence of inulin, a carbohydrate similar to fructose, which humans lack the enzymes to digest. The task of breaking it down it is therefore sub-contracted to 'friendly' intestinal bacteria which do an admirable job of making the stored energy available but produce carbon dioxide as a byproduct. Every silver lining, they say, has a cloud."
Mostly the advice seems to be to peel them - there is more inulin in the skin I think - however difficult it is - and to try a small amount to begin with. One piece of advice is to cut off the biggest knobs before you peel and another is to cook them briefly in boiling water and then the skins will come off easier. And don't serve them raw. One cook also said that if you could cook them for a very long time - like hours and hours at a very low temperature, then the bad inulin would all disappear. Not going to be doing that either.
Anyway I am now very nervous, but lots of these cooks do seem to be very enamoured of their virtues and do have some tempting sounding recipes. Here are a few.
Click on the name or the picture for the recipe.
This one is from Yotam Ottolenghi - who has heaps of recipes for them. He seems to think that they have a great affinity with nuts, not that there are any in this recipe. Manouri, by the way is a Greek cheese and you can substitute Halloumi.
CRUSHED JERUSALEM ARTICHOKES WITH TARRAGON (Yotam Ottolenghi)
600g Jerusalem artichokes, peeled cut into 1cm dice (420g) and covered with cold water, with the juice of 1/2 lemon squeezed on top, to prevent discolouration, 2 tbsp olive oil, 4 small shallots, thinly sliced (60g), 100ml vegetable stock, 5 garlic cloves, crushed, 2 tbsp dry white wine, 2 tbsp lemon juice, 10g tarragon leaves, roughly chopped, 5g parsley leaves, finely chopped, coarse sea salt and black pepper
Drain the Jerusalem artichokes well and pat dry with a clean tea towel. Place a medium saucepan on a medium high heat and add the olive oil and artichokes. Sauté for about 8 minutes, until they are almost cooked and starting to caramelise, but still retain a bite. Add the shallots, along with the vegetable stock and 3/4 teaspoon of salt, and cook for another 8 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium and add the garlic, stir through for another minute, then pour over the wine. Cook for 2 minutes, add the lemon juice and cook for a final minute. Remove from the heat and stir through the herbs, along with a good grind of black pepper. Lightly crush the artichokes with a potato masher or fork and serve.
SAUTEED JERUSALEM ARTICHOKES WITH GARLIC AND BAY LEAVES (Jamie Oliver)
Click on the name or the picture to go to the recipe.
Sautéeing them is a favourite method of cooking them - Madhur Jaffrey has a version with cumin and shallots. You quarter the artichokes, fry until brown, add the cumin and cook for another five minutes, then add sliced shallots, cooking them until brown. Season at the end with salt, pepper and cayenne.
Beverley Sutherland Smith even has a recipe for pickling them with capsicums and onions.
Generally speaking though the favourite ways of cooking this vegetable seem to be roasting, sautéeing and in soups and mashes.
Oh and they are very easy to grow and indeed very difficult to get rid of once you do have them growing in the garden. And since I was given some for free, I also assume that they are very prolific.
Still not sure if I'm brave enough to try though.
