Sunday Dinner: Sunchokes
Sunchokes may also be known as Jerusalem Artichokes, but they are no artichoke. In fact they are all brown and knobby and look a lot more like overgrown ginger (but don't taste like ginger) than anything else. I feel like we've been seeing sunchokes everywhere (Top Chef anyone?). Lately they've been all over restaurant menus too -- from fried to pureed -- which I really enjoyed -- and I was excited to see the sunchoke recipe in the latest issue of Fine Cooking.
I whipped up a bunch of the roasted sunchokes with artichoke hearts today during the Super Bowl -- although "whipped up" is probably a little bit of an exaggeration because it took longer than I expected. I sliced up the sunchokes and placed them into lemon water so they wouldn't get brown / oxidized, but then they were too wet when I put them in the pan to brown them, so it took a long time to get the nice brown color. The second batch (I did extra) I drained and patted dry first, and they browned up nicely. Next time, I'd make sure they were a little drier before frying, and get a nice brown crustiness on all of them.
[aside: Oh, and the big deal with the oven-safe skillet I used? I did get it out of the oven safely, obviously using an oven mitt, but then once I put it down on the stove, I kept forgetting it was still hot and trying to grab the handle. Ouch. Luckily no big burns. And next time I am just going to put a sheath (if I can find it - it's been missing for a while) or an oven mitt on it so I don't grab it.]
Overall -- liked the dish, and the lemony-tangy-ness of the sauce. Liked the crispy-chewy mix of textures in the sunchokes themselves, and the artichokes also made a nice complement. But, I'm not in love with it. Still like sunchokes though and am still determined to find a go-to recipe for them that really pops. Next time I'll try another approach, maybe chopping the sunchokes into smaller pieces and tossing them in some olive oil and garlic.