"The martian tennis ball, the slug magnet, the devil's testicle." Mark Diacono/River Cottage
My sister gets one of those deliveries of a box of vegetables - as does Nigel Slater - and last week she got kohlrabi and fennel and didn't know what to do with them.
Well I don't know what to do with kohlrabi either. I know about fennel - and I've given her a couple of ideas. But kohlrabi needed research. I have never bought it, never been served it and, of course, never cooked it. So, somewhat late in the day I thought I would see what I could find for Jenny. Hope I'm not too late sister dear.
And as an aside - I am more than happy to answer in a blog any questions you my readers might have or ideas you might have that can be featured in a post. I definitely have patches of total lack of inspiration so a prompt from anywhere is very welcome.
Right at the outset I will say, that my sister doesn't really need this - there are absolutely tons of recipes out there on the net. It's apparently a thing in New York at the moment - mostly in the form of slaws and suchlike. The other thing I would like to say is how interesting it is to see who is a fan and who is not. So apologies for the huge bias to Ottolenghi who is a massive fan it seems. Which could be explained, not just because of his love of vegetables but also because his mother was German I believe, and this is sort of its homeland, although I don't think that is where it originates from. But then it's not a natural vegetable - it's a cultivar of wild cabbage. Yes cabbage - technically speaking it's a brassica. The other reason for Ottolenghi's fandom is perhaps that it is also apparently popular in Israel.
"People always ask me what to do with kohlrabi, an often unwanted child in the organic vegetable box. It seems too healthy, too weird, too German!" Yotam Ottolenghi
Yes German - the name is German - kohl (cabbage) rübe (turnip) about which Jane Grigson comments:
"We have adopted rather than translated the German name, which indicates a lack of warmth on our part." Jane Grigson
On her part too I might say - she is not a fan and only offers two very brief recipes - one for a stuffed kohlrabi and the other for a sort of stir fry.
"There are better vegetables than kohlrabi. And worse. I am thinking in particular of winter turnip and swede; certainly kohlrabi is a pleasant alternative to that grim pair." Jane Grigson
Well I'm with her on the turnips but not the swede although I didn't like swede all that much as a child. Now I love it and would eat more of it if it was cheaper. $8.00 a kilo today - or was it $9.00?
Jamie has nothing, even more surprisingly Nik Sharma in his supposedly comprehensive book on vegetables Veg-Table does not even mention it although he did say that turnips were the only vegetable he did not like because he didn't like the smell. Maybe he lumps kohlrabi in with that.
In spite of those words at the top of the page, River Cottage's Mark Diacono actually has a lot of respect for the vegetable saying that:
"The bulb has a flavour like the sweetest cabbage heart, and a water chestnut like crunch that's perfect for rémoulade and coleslaw, where it combines splendidly with the usual roots and cabbage, but perhaps most happily with apple and Brussels sprouts."
Others mention the crunch and there are indeed lots of recipes for salads and slaws, pickles and the like. In one of his many Guardian articles on kohlrabi Yotam Ottolenghi offers Kohlrabi and lime salad; and elsewhere there is kohlrabi slaw with horseradish and candied sunflower seeds; Cabbage and kohlrabi salad which you can find on a website called The Taste Space; and then on the Green Prophet website there is Ottolenghi's kohlrabi salad
And that's just his salads. He is also into fermenting. In the same article as the first salad he has one of his two fermenting recipes - Kohlrabi kimchi (there was no picture - the picture below is of a dish of mussels and squid with the kohlrabi kimchi). The other one is Fermented kohlrabi and shiitake in neither of which I suspect Jenny will be interested but in the interests of covering everything you can do with kohlrabi I thought I should include it. And Tom Hunt's Kohlrabi ceviche is a kind of pickle, so let's lump it in here.
There is actually a very wide range of approaches to kohlrabi on the net, and here I should perhaps mention Matt Preston's article on the delicious. website - Is kohlrabi cooking's biggest conundrum in which he covers in a generalised kind of way, all of the approaches that one can take to the vegetable, so I suspect that it's one of those relatively bland vegetables that will soak up flavours from everywhere. He had been inspired to write the article by noticing that it was becoming increasingly popular with chefs, both here and abroad and so because:
"It seemed inconceivable that this most loneliest of veg, an unloved and misunderstood wallflower, could turn into the belle of the ball. Inconceivable but intriguing."
Well I think they are rather beautiful. And if you have the leaves still attached you can (a) tell if the kohlrabi is fresh because the leaves wilt quite quickly and (b) you can use the leaves too - just as you would any other leafy green - small ones in salads, larger ones cooked. Moreover he notes that:
"What I found was that this chameleon of a vegetable changes flavour depending on how it is cooked. It also has a texture that goes from apple-crisp when raw, to creamy like a parsnip when roasted."
Back in 2009 in his book Tender vol.1 Nigel Slater says "I am still trying to discover what makes kohlrabi tick" and doesn't give it a chapter to itself. However, he must have persevered because there are a few recipes scattered here and there in which he uses the vegetable as with Mackerel, kohlrabi and cornichons. Which is really just another salad. I suspect he is still experimenting.
In the tradition of kohlrabi as a vegetable side, the first recipe I found was fom Jennifer McGavin on The Spruce Eats website and was apparently a typically German way of presenting the dish Kohlrabi side dish in creamy sauce - as an accompaniment to chicken. and Ottolenghi also serves it as a kind of tonnato Kohlrabi with tonnato, herbs, fried capers and aleppo chilli - which doesn't really sound very tonnato like.
Finally let's turn to the oven. Ixta Belfrage has two gorgeous looking recipes in her book Meczla, but you will have to buy it - or ask me for the recipe if you want to try either of them - Kohlrabi with miso meunière and Roasted kohlrabi and tomato broth with crispy ginger
Online however, you can find yet more Ottolenghi recipes - Buttery roasted kohlrabi with lots of garlic and tomatoes; Kohlrabi and gorgonzola gratin (no picture, but I suspect the picture given here would be similar) and Whole roast kohlrabi with herb oil and fried almonds. Then Life and Lemons offers one version of a gratin - Kohlrabi casserole with tomatoes and sage but there are lots more variations on that particular theme online.
So there you go Jenny - lots to choose from. They aren't in season here, and it's cold but over there I guess I would go for one of the slaws, or salads. Basically I reckon you can do anything to kohlrabi that you would do to any other root looking kind of vegetable. Maybe a gratin 0 or Ottolenghi's roasted with vegetables.
POSTSCRIPT
On this day 21st August over the years I wrote:
2023 - Well I didn't write anything on that day.
2022 - Allsorts - a bits and pieces post which included what to do with overipe bananas and overripe cheese (Fromage fort), prizewinning pizzerias, coffee capsules and a beautiful Ixta Belfrage fish recipe.
2021 - Time for this and that - more bits and pieces - Chia jam, Eltham chooks, Smoky citrus, Easy plating and a tempting roast chicken recipe from Thomasina Miers.
2020 - Another moment in time
2019 - Nothing doing today
2018 - Or here either
The 21st seems to have been a bit of a difficult day for the blog!
Hi sister dear,
Am reading this on my phone because as you know have problems with the Mac!! Anyway, very comprehensive but like you say, it is summer here, so think I am going for a slaw, the one with lime perhaps, as guess what also in the box were limes!!