Sunchokes Tossed with Dill

Unless you live near an international border, going to a country you’ve never visited before can cost hundreds — if not thousands — of dollars. Even seeing a new movie that’s just come out can cost around $20. (Which is why I quit going to evening shows a long time ago.) But you can try a new food for $2 or less.

Isn’t that incredible? I mean, think about it: we’re forever in search of the latest thing, wanting to check out the hot new trend or the most recent version of [fill in the blank]. We’re willing to spend a fair amount of money and time in that pursuit. Getting to sample new flavors, though, is far more affordable and convenient — all that takes is a quick visit to a good market/grocery store. (By “good,” I mean non-big-box, non-cookie-cutter, non-”super”markets. I’m talking smaller stores that stock a variety of produce and animal products and are more than happy to talk to customers to get our feedback/requests and to answer our questions about what we’re buying.)

My latest-and-greatest food find is sunchokes, otherwise known as Jerusalem artichokes. I’d read about them years ago and had started seeing a few recipes featuring them lately in food magazines, but I still hadn’t tried them myself. They’re roots that look a lot like ginger roots: tan, knobbly, slightly barky, and about the size of a golf ball (or smaller). Sunchokes, though, are actually the roots of sunflowers. The “Jerusalem” in “Jerusalem artichoke” apparently cropped up as a bastardization of girasol — the g is pronounced more like an h — which is the Spanish word for sunflower. Seeing as sunchokes taste remarkably like artichoke hearts (and require infinitely less effort to prepare!), I’m guessing the “artichoke” half of the name sprang from the flavor of the root…much like the more modern term breaks down into sun|choke.

Texture-wise, sunchokes are very similar to potatoes and can be treated the same way: baked, sautéed, roasted, simmered. I chose to simmer mine and toss them with simple seasonings so that I could get a good idea of what the sunchoke itself tastes like. I was thrilled by its artichoke-heart-ness. No two plants taste exactly the same, of course — even when you’ve got two organic Fuji apples, they might not taste identical — but from now on, it’ll be mighty tempting to go for sunchokes before artichokes when I have a hankering for that artichoke flavor.

Sunchokes Tossed with Dill

Sunchokes do brown easily as you’re prepping them, so have a bowl of cool water handy to toss the peeled chokes into as you go. I find that the easiest way to remove the barky thin skin is to pare it away with a small, sharp knife; I don’t like using vegetable peelers when I’m dealing with something that’s irregularly shaped and has a knobbly surface. If you have a range of sizes of chokes, cut the bigger ones in half or even thirds so that they’re roughly the same size as the smallest ones.

Get a pot of water boiling on the stove. Add the chokes and simmer them for 6 to 8 minutes or until they’ve reached your desired tenderness. I poke the tip of a sharp knife into the biggest one to see if the knife goes through it fairly easily. When it does, I immediately drain the chokes. You definitely don’t want to overcook them and turn them mushy. (Unless you plan on mashing them.)

Toss the drained chokes with extra-virgin olive oil, dill, and a pinch of sea salt. How much you add is up to you, but go with enough oil to coat the chokes (but not so much that the chokes are sitting in pools of oil — drizzle and stir and drizzle and stir, gradually adding the oil until you get to the coated-not-pooled stage) and however much dill you prefer (again, start slow and sprinkle and toss, sprinkle and toss until you like the dill-ness of it all). Same goes for the salt: add to taste. Cooked sunchokes can be refrigerated for four days; uncooked chokes last weeks in the fridge if you loosely bundle them into a plastic bag.

Enjoy your new flavor!

In the case of rice, short-grain and long-grain varieties both contain two kinds of starch, but it’s the ratio of the starches that make the rice react to heat differently. The type of starch in long-grain doesn’t reach its popping point until about 200 degrees F; the short-grain starch will burst (become sticky) at 165 degrees F. That means that long-grained is more suitable for dishes where you want the grains to remain separate: pilafs, rice salads, as simple side dishes tossed with a bit of oil and spices.  (Examples:  jasmine, basmati.) Short-grain is better for sushi, rice pudding, paella and stir frys.  (Examples:  Spanish, pearl.)  Arborio rice occupies a peculiar middle position and is used for making risotto, an Italian dish wherein the grains are slowly simmered with liquid (trickling it in as you go) and served with Parmesan cheese. The final product is a rice that’s starchy enough to thicken its own sauce but is still crunchy inside.

Potatoes also come in three basic varieties: high-starch, medium-starch, and low-starch. The trade-off for high starch is low moisture, which means that the end result is a fluffy, dry potato, one that’s easy to mash and stuff. (Their high absorption rate also means, however, that they’ll fall apart when you boil them, so don’t use these for potato salads and other situations requiring a solid, still-shaped-like-a-potato cooked potato.) The opposite high-moisture, low-starch potatoes hold their form well and are wonderful used in baked gratins and soups and stews calling for potato chunks. Medium-starch potatoes are the all-purpose variety and are especially suited for roasting. It might be easier to remember that high-starch potatoes are sometimes called “baking potatoes” since they’re better prepared that way, and low-starch varieties are known as “boiling potatoes” since they’re stovetop-friendly.

Some common examples:
Baking potatoes:  Russets (Idaho)–brown, thick, flavorful skins
Boiling potatoes: Fingerlings–long, slender, with thin skins; these taste like butter all on their own
Yukon Golds–roundish and pale brown, thin-skinned and with a yellow flesh
Redskins–round and pink, with thin skins and a slightly peppery flavor
All-purpose potatoes:  White potatoes–round and/or Russet-shaped potatoes, medium-thick skins
Purple potatoes–you can’t beat these for sheer exotic appeal, especially in pureés!

Happy cooking!

Daikons look like oversized parsnips.  (Parsnips look like white carrots).   You can usually find them alongside turnips, beets, and other root vegetables.  That section of the produce department is usually overlooked, so don’t be surprised if you find other vegetables you’ve never seen before!