Kohlrabi looks weird, tastes great – Portage Daily Register

When I was a kid in Baraboo my dad had a small plot garden. It joined our backyard and in the one place that flooded just about every year. One of the things that endured the flooding every year was a weird looking plant called kohlrabi (coal-ROB-ee).

I remember my dad cutting them fresh from the garden and not being able to wait to eat them, sometimes just cutting them open and eating them raw right in the garden plot.

As a kid this weird looking plant didn’t make my palate jump for joy. However, I recently bought a few at the farmer’s market and decided to try what my dad had so loved. I had out-of-town visitors, one originally from Budapest, Hungary, Suzanne Czibios, who reveled in memories from her homeland where she said the vegetable was a mainstay in her household.

“It is delicious, eaten just like an apple and sometimes similar in sweet taste and texture and juiciness, but the leaves are likewise delicious. You just don’t want to eat the outside covering because it’s bitter and will make you never want to try this pretty unusual plant again. However, the leaves are like collard greens and delicious,” she said. So together, we decided to try some simple ways to eat kohlrabi.

If you’ve never eaten it look for Sputnik-shaped vegetables that come in green or purple. That’s right — they resemble the Soviet satellite. They are mild and slightly sweet, tasting much like broccoli stems. Kohlrabi means cabbage turnip in German as in kohl such as cole slaw and rube as in turnip. Kohlrabi is not a root vegetable; it’s a brassica or a plant related to cabbage. The bulbous shapes grow above ground, not below.

Some people like to cook the leaves like kale, but once the thick skin is peeled away you can steam, boil, bake, grill or roast kohlrabi. You can stir-fry them along with other vegetables, julienne them and fry or bake them like potatoes, boil them and mash them along with potatoes or add them to soups and stews. If you like Indian recipes, you will often find kohlrabi as a staple in Indian cuisine.

We made a delicious curry kohlrabi concoction but agreed that the French fry cut kohlrabi along with just a bit of salt and pepper was our favorite part, reminding Suzanne of her homeland and me of my dad.

Rebecca Powell Hill is a Brand-new York Times best-selling author of ChefMD, founder of ChefDocs and a marketing consultant. She lives in Baraboo.