Kohlrabi

Description

Uses

Kohlrabi can be peeled and eaten whole like an apple, or grated into a salad. Cut into fingers they make a great snack or crudite.   It can also be integrated into cooking much like cabbage, eg soups, and stews, leaves and all.  The quickest way to enjoy this vegetable as a hot side dish is to slice into ‘chips’ like potato chips, or round discs, not too thin, and add to a frying pan with some butter, oil and dark sauce of your choice eg keriyaki, oyster, soy, etc.   It will soften quite quickly, and all you really need is a bit of caramelisation on the edges and you have a very tasty something-you-haven’t-tasted before that goes with steamed veg and fried meat and salad.   Also cook the leaves seperately, to use at the same meal.  See below..

The leaves are best cooked with oil and butter, with which to fry onions and potato, in a pan.  Make the potato into small cubes to fry quickly, soften by adding the chopped green leaves and putting the lid on for a short while.  

Recipes:

Tip:   If you lack some of the ingredients but the recipe helps you to use what  you have to make a tasty meal, consider its purpose served.   

Kohlrabi in salad with fava beans, kale and red and green cabbage: 

(To make things much easier, use the fresh kohlrabi leaves instead of kale, and if fava beans are not available buy a tin of butter beans instead.   Red cabbage can be replaced with some of our staunch red heirloom salad leaves, or radicchio)

To make your own cherry-honey mustard use a half cup good mayonnaise, 1 T honey, 1T lemon or lime juice, 2T good yellow or whole grain mustard, 1 T dijon mustard, small amount of pureed cherries to taste.   Mix well.   If it is too sharp add honey.

Use other available fruits if cherries are out of season, eg blueberries, raspberries.. 

Ingredients:   fresh fava beans (or a cup of butter beans well drained), fresh kohlrabi, medium cream cherry, olive oil, honey, cherry honey mustard, kale, red cabbage, green cabbage, red onion, fresh italian parsley or chervil. 

Directions:  If fava beans is what you are using, bring a pot of water to the boil.   Dunk beans in and remove from the heat.   Give them about 2 minutes, then remove from the hot water and dunk into an ice-water bath to stop the cooking process.   Remove fava beans from pods.   Remove fava beans from skins.

Peel kohlrabi, slice half a cup kohlrabi and add raw to the glass jar with the steamed fava beans.  Also stir in four tablespoons sherry, two tablespoons olive oil, one tablespoon honey, one tablespoon cherry honey mustard and season to taste with salt and pepper. Let the fava beans and kohlrabi marinade in dressing for ten minutes.

Wash and dry the kale. Remove one cup of kale leaves from stems, slice as finely as possible, (called chiffonade) and add to a large glass mixing bowl.   Remove one cup purple cabbage from head, chiffonade and add to the mixing bowl.   Remove one cup green cabbage from head, chiffonade and add to the mixing bowl. Remove onion skins, thinly slice one quarter cup red onion and add to the mixing bowl. Wash and dry parsley. Remove one quarter cup parsley leaves from stems and add to the mixing bowl. 

Stir fava bean and kohlrabi mixture into the salad, let rest for ten minutes and serve with a sprinkle of sea salt. 

Pickled kohlrabi to use as garnish or in a salad

Simply steep thinkly sliced kohlrabi in a sweetened vinaigrette with fresh dill seeds, add mustard seeds if you have, for an hour before serving as a garnish or in a salad. Your salad will probably need no further dressing, just add a little more of the steeping juice if needed.