Harvesting and Cooking a New Vegetable From our Garden: Kohlrabi - A Review

As I've mentioned before, ordering seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds at www.rareseeds.com is great for several reasons.  One of those reasons is the FREE SEED they send you with your order.  It is always a seed or a variety of seed that you've never grown.  It is a good way to get you to expand your horizons and broaden your experiences.  I like free stuff.  I like fun stuff.  I like trying new stuff.  It reminds me of many years ago, we'd order our baby chicks from Murray McMurray Hatchery.  They ran a promotion in which they'd throw in a "mystery chick" with your order.  As the chick would grow, you would try to guess the mystery bird by comparing it to photos of chicken varieties.  Fun!  But I digress, back to our mystery seed.

We got a packet of Early Purple Vienna Kohlrabi.  I had never grown nor eaten kohlrabi.  It is in the brassica family and is a pre-1860 heirloom.  I was eager to try them so we planted them this fall.  Today, we decided to harvest the biggest and give it a try.  We figured at worst, if we didn't like it, we could feed it to the cows.  Here is the ripened Purple Kohlrabi in all its purple glory:

Isn't that the strangest thing?  Tricia said it reminded her of a UFO.  I told her I thought the same thing - that if aliens grew vegetables on Mars, this would be what it would look like.

I pulled all the leaves off of the "bulb" and fed them to the cows and then brought the bizarre brassica inside.  It was as a sign from God that this was going to be a good experience.  The late afternoon rays of sun filtered through the western window, giving the kohlrabi a halo of sorts as I cut it in half.

I peeled the purple skin off of it by slicing it carefully with a butcher's knife.  The bulb was about the size of a softball.  I was a little concerned that it would be too big and would be hard and "woody," but it didn't seem like that as I was cutting it.

I quickly cut it into 1 inch cubes.  I found a recipe for Roasted Kohlrabi with Parmesan.  We preheated the oven to 450 degrees.

I drizzled olive oil over the top and then kosher salt and then followed up with a dusting of Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning.

Then I put it in the oven for 30 minutes.  Every ten minutes, I would open the oven and turn the kohlrabi with a spatula to ensure it was roasting evenly.  At the end of 30 minutes, the kohlrabi cubes were golden brown and looking pretty doggone good.  I pulled them out and grated some fresh parmesan cheese over them.  The recipe called for sprinkling fresh parsley, but I didn't want to walk out to the garden and get some when we had fresh cilantro in the fridge.  That'll do instead, right?

Here is the "money" shot.  That looks good, doesn't it?

But things can look good and taste bad.  Time to give it the taste test.  DELICIOUS!  These won't be getting fed to the cows.  In fact, Tricia and I almost ate the entire dish.  Tricia asked how many more we have in the garden and I told her 6 or 8, so we'll be eating more of these.  What do they taste like?  The best description is one I read:  "It has the consistency of a turnip, but the taste of broccoli."  I think that is an accurate description.  We'll put Purple Kohlrabi into our winter garden rotation from here on out.  Highly recommended.

Broccoli from Another Planet

You probably have "old stand-by's" in your garden - like tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, and green beans and every single year without fail, you plant them. You like certain varieties and you swear by them.  I'm like that too, but I also have an unofficial experimental plot where I plant odd things.  I find these odd varieties while perusing seed catalogs on dreary, wet, cold winter days while sitting in front of the fireplace.

This year I planted some purple cauliflower, some green cauliflower, and this oddity - Romanesco Broccoli.  It literally means broccoli from Rome because it originated in Italy.

Romanesco

Romanesco looks like a cross between a broccoli and a cauliflower, but if you look really close (and I wish I had a better camera to show you), it is very, very strange looking.  It has many points on it that are made up of spiral buds that are arranged in other spirals.  Those spirals make up curious patterns.

Up until it creates its head, you might easily mistake the plant for a normal broccoli or cauliflower plant, but then when it starts growing its head, you know immediately that this is not your everyday, run-of-the-mill broccoli.  No, this thing looks like it is truly from another planet.  Luke Skywalker, from Star Wars, was a farm boy on the planet Tatooine before rising to fame.  Yes, I'll bet this is what Luke probably grew before becoming a Jedi.

Romanesco spirals

Have you ever noticed that so many things in nature have patterns that are distinct and orderly in a mathematical arrangement?  Things like the pattern on pine cones, pineapples, artichokes, sunflowers, and romanesco...  Looking at things like this is evidence to me of a Divine Creator. Things like this just couldn't have been created by accident.

In fact, since we're talking about "Broccoli from Rome," I thought this verse is quite appropriate:

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.  Romans 1:20

Well, regardless what it looks like, I harvested some and we're going to taste it soon. It is supposed to have a nutty, delicate taste most similar to cauliflower.  Although we haven't tasted it yet, I'm sure it will be "out of this world."