Cooking
Root and branch
Marika Hanbury Tenison
When it comes to growing things, British kitchen gardens are some of the best in the world. They may not have the amount of sunshine it needs to grow Ogen melons out of doors, peanuts underground or sweet corn all the year round but our climate makes it possible for us to produce an astonishingly well-balanced variety orvegetables throughout the year, and if you happen to have a greenhouse and a certain amount of patience this variety can be extended to include all manner of exotic things. Three root vegetables we grow for harvesting in the autumn happen to be the strangest and the ugliest looking items in a cook's calendar. This doesn't, however, stop them from making exceptionally good eating or from providing an interesting alternative to the more mundane and better known vegetables that make their debut at the end of the summer.
The trio — kohlrabi, salsify and celeriac — seldom appear on the greengrocer's counter for, I imagine, the simple reason that they all look so weird that a housewife seeing them and not having been introduced might not be blamed for turning her mind to the safer ground of carrots, turnips and parsnips. If you remember what a sputnik looked like then you will not have any trouble recognising kohlrabi because this root, especially when its leaves are shaved off, is an edible facsimile of that man-made extravaganza — and very delicious too.
Kohlrabi is technically a hybrid member of the brassica family and indeed its slightly purple-coloured leaves make good eating, but the plant is principally revered for the purple-green bulb from which the leaves sprout: a crisp, light-flavoured affair with the texture of a young turnip but a flavour quite unlike anything else. If left to its own devices the kohlrabi bulb will grow to a gigantic size and even, in time, sprout small sputniks from the parent stem. I have met many people who express surprise at my adulation of this strange vegetable only to discover they have left them in the ground for far too long. Ideally kohlrabi should be pulled when they are the size of golf balls and before they reach the size of tennis balls. In this condition the leaves are full of flavour and the ball succulent, almost nutty and very tender.
Austria and Bavaria are where the kohlrabi has really made its mark. It turns up in any number of guises, shredded in salads, cooked, sliced and served with a vinaigrette or hollandaise sauce or folded into a well flavoured mayonnaise to serve as part of an hors d'oeuvre. As a hot vegetable it is creamed and seasoned with nutmeg; stuffed like marrow and stewed gently in a little stock, sliced and topped with grated cheese or cut into matchstick strips and served with butter and finely chopped parsley. To pre pare and cook kohlrabi, cut off the leaves at their base and trim and wash the bulb, which should be cooked — without peeling, as the bulk of its goodness and flavour lies just below the skin — in boiling salted water for about thirty minutes until tender. Drain, leave until cool enough to handle and then peel off the skin.
The kohlrabi with its sputnik comicality has great charm, while celeriac, on the other hand, is nothing but a great big ugly duckling. To look at, the celeriac root is bulbous, distorted and tortured; to taste, it is celery in a lump with a firm texture that, like a chameleon, adapts to its situation. A remoulade of celeriac is delicious with poached salmon or, pureed, with rare roast beef; or it may be blanched and cut into strips with a dressing of vinaigrette, some Greek cheese, ripe black olives and a loaf of coarse black or wholemeal bread.
Another vegetable of hideous appear ance is the scorzonera, with its long black roots that sprout trailing hairs as long as a mandarin's beard. Like its cousin the salsify, this middle-European wild root was a vegetable much favoured by the Victorians, tending to be thicker and to have more flavour than the rather prettier salsify. The root of the scorzonera was also known in the medical world as 'viper grass' because it was used as an antidote for snake bites. One of the joys of this plant in the garden is that you can leave it in in the ground through winter and dig it up as you need it. Those plants that are left in the spring will also produce tender green shoots which can be cut, boiled and served with a little lemon and melted butter and have a flavour reminiscent of asparagus.
Scorzonera performs a Cinderella transformation as it cooks. You wash the grotesque hairy roots or scrub them to remove all the dirt, trim off the tops and then cook the black sticks in salted water for about twenty-five minutes until they are tender. Leave the roots to cool and then rub off the almost bark-like skin with your fingers, exposing the white flesh underneath. Salsify is known as the 'oyster of the earth' and scorzonera equally deserves this title; it is subtly flavoured and so delicious that I think it should be served by itself rather than risk being swamped as a mere accompaniment to a main dish. It can be tossed in melted butter, and sprinkled with lots of finely chopped parsley, fried in butter and served with lemon.
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