…a.k.a. Jerusalem artichokes.
I just harvested a mess of them from the garden (“mess” may not be the approved term, but it sort of fits) and was thinking about using them mostly for a low-key Thanksgiving side dish.
A simple roast dish with olive oil, salt and pepper is under consideration.
Okay, I have not tried this but would consider it as a substitute for creamy boiled onions (which I like but have been done before):
http://www.donalskehan.com/recipes/creamy-jerusalem-artichokes/
Serve without telling anyone what they are. I bet you get a lot of Hey, what IS this?
Don’t eat too big a serving, especially if you’ve never had them before.
I didn’t eat much because I didn’t particularly care for them (mostly a texture thing; they tasted a bit like carrots but were kind of slimy, KWIM?) and what I did eat made me gassier than any beans ever did.
They are terrific sliced thinly and fried. Here is a nice recipe: crispy sunchoke chips with lemon-rosemary salt. I have made them by spraying them with olive oil and oven baking them as well.
Years back, maybe 30, I grew them in my garden. Gave a large amount to a friend who was into juicing. He juiced up a rather generous amount that was consumed by he and his wife.
About 3 hours later they could not stand to be in the house because of the smell. Neither one made it to work the next day either.
You’ve been warned.
The good old fartichokes.
According to the 7th-century English botanist John Goodyer—the guy who introduced sunchokes to England from France—noting that, “which way so ever they be dressed and eaten, they stir and cause a filthy loathsome stinking wind.”
I always wanted to figure out a really good recipe for them and take them to a work potluck, but I’ve never actually had the supreme good fortune to have both a potluck and find them available in the stores to purchase at the same time.
I’ve only seen them for sale in the farmer’s market. I have never seen the tubers available for sale in garden centers either, probably because they are extremely invasive.
IIRC, you won’t find them in a grocery store, except maybe for one that purchases local produce, because they don’t keep very long and also don’t ship well because they have very thin skins.
I can vouch for this. I planted mine in a small circular bed surrounded by lawn for control purposes. Over a few years the sunchokes crowded out everything else planted in the bed.
The variety I grow (there are many different types with varying flavors from ‘‘nutty’’ to ‘‘piney’’) is Red Fuseau.
I might try the fried sunchoke chips recipe. They are also good raw in salads, with a very mild flavor something like water chestnuts.
I’ve found that the older the plant gets, the less delicious the tuber. Mine are hardly worth eating now, after being in a pot for 5ish years. I am trying to work out how to compost them in my worm bin without resprouting. (see “invasive”)
PLEASE warn your guests to only try a small amount. They are very high in inulin, a soluble fibre. This article suggests boiling in lemon juice or fermentation pickling, to convert the inulin to fructose: Looking For a Sunchoke Recipe That Doesn't Cause Gas? Try Lemon Juice - Modern Farmer
Araminty, I would recommend that you burn them, or at least cook them. If you just toss them in your compost, they will go to town unless your heap is 150 degrees at the center.
Water chestnuts - yep, that’s what they taste like, although the texture is drastically different. I couldn’t think of them until I saw that.
I dig mine up every year. I started with four tubers. After the first season, I dug them up to spread them. (Their purpose is to shade that side of the house.) The next year I dug them up, put them in a bucket (they filled the bucket), and forgot about them. They got rained on and rotted. Turns out it’s not possible to dig up all of them. The next spring they came up in a bigger, thicker patch just from the tiny bits I had missed.
Do not plant them anywhere you don’t want infested for all time.
Simply onion, garlic, fartichokes, sweated in butter or olive oil and then cooked all the way in chicken stock, then smoothed out with a stick blender. Thinner and it’s soup, amazing with a comte cheese toastie. Thicker and it’s the most fantastic sauce for chicken and pasta.
I’m hoping the bits I threw into my compost heap this autumn will take over my world. I can’t get enough of them. But yes, you do need to be either alone or among extremely understanding friends for the 3-6 hours after eating.