Sunchokes (Jerusalem Artichokes)

Sorry its been a while, but I was out of town, and didn't think the little cooking that I have been doing was worthy of writing about. Today, I am back on track, and I made the sunchokes (also called Jerusalem artichokes) that were in the farm share last week. They are a root vegetable (well, more specifically the tuber of a sunflower plant) that kind of resemble ginger. They are a good source of potassium and iron. I think the term sunchoke is becoming the preferred way of referring to these guys. Here's what they look like out of the farm share box.

It seemed like there were two popular ways to cook them. Roasting or pureeing. Initially I was gonna puree until I figured I wouldn't have to peel em if I roasted em. Here's what they look like scrubbed down with a potato brush.

I then cut them into small pieces and put them in a bowl of water as they were oxidizing quickly on me. After they were cut, I scrubbed them again, as the smaller pieces exposed more dirt that I couldn't reach in the initial scrub down.

Once cleaned, I dried them thoroughly with a towel and placed them in a roasting pan with salt & pepper and some olive oil. I mixed them around to make sure they were all covered, then roasted in a 400 degree oven for about 25 minutes. (All of the recipes said 5-7 minutes, but they were not ready for me until 25.)

They didn't look so hot when they came out of the oven. The skins got darker and almost burnt looking. They were good though. Crusty on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside. Kind of like a roasted potato but not as starchy. And I get the artichoke nickname. They did have kind of a delicate artichoke flavor. The Captain really liked them.

That said, I kind of didn't tell him the whole story about these guys. Apparently the carbohydrate in them isn't digested well by everyone. Here's a fun quote that I took from wikipedia, "which way soever they be dressed and eaten, they stir and cause a filthy loathsome stinking wind within the body, thereby causing the belly to be pained and tormented, and are a meat more fit for swine than men." English planter John Goodyer said that back in 1621. We will see how that works out tonight I guess.