FIFTY-FOUR : JERUSALEM ARTICHOKES

OCTOBER 18 2011

[JER•U•SA•LEM AR•TI•CHOKE] noun : "also called the sunroot, sunchoke, earth apple or topinambour, is a species of sunflower native to eastern North America, and found from Eastern Canada and Maine west to North Dakota, and south to northern Florida and Texas. It is also cultivated widely across the temperate zone for its tuber, which is used as a root vegetable." ~wikipedia

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Fall is root vegetable season and that makes me happy.
I love, love, love most root veggies (sorry beets) and so was excited to add the knobbly little sunchoke to my cold weather repertoire. Frankies' simple recipe had me toss scrubbed sunchokes with olive oil, salt and pepper then roast 25-30 minutes until tender.

before : after

They claim peeling is unnecessary if they are well scrubbed... but I'm not so sure. I ended up roasting them an extra 10 minutes because the skins were still crunchy and by then the insides were quite soft with many crunchy bits still remaining. I think peeling would be worth the effort to keep the texture consistent throughout.

I did enjoy the flavor, reminded me a little of parsnip, and bet they would be delicious mashed or in a breakfast hash. I will try these ugly little guys again :)

not much of a looker... but pretty tasty!