Rutabaga: Hi Ginger.
Ginger: Hi Rutabaga. How are you?
Rutabaga: Feeling kind of down. I am not very pretty.
Ginger: Me neither.
Rutabaga: I am not very social either. I think it’s because I spent most of my life with my head underground.
Ginger: Hey…. me too!
Rutabaga: Wow. Uh… want to have dinner together sometime?
In the last post, I challenged you all to buy and cook with something you have never tried before. My answer to the challenge was a virgin rutabaga purchase. I am sure I have eaten them at some time in my life but had never had one in my own kitchen. It is no surprise that they aren’t the most popular vegetable. They are sort of an awkward size, bigger than a grapefruit but smaller than a cantelope, and they aren’t much to look it. For all these reasons, it became all the more appealing to me so I could try to turn the ugly duckling into a swan!
I usually love mashed and pureed root vegetables so I decided to mash my first rutabaga. And, for some reason, perhaps I read it somewhere, it seemed like a good idea to put it together with ginger and orange. The ginger was sliced and placed in boiling water with peeled rutabaga chunks to give it a nice aroma. After draining the chunks of rutabaga and removing the ginger, I hand mashed them with olive oil and the juice of half an orange. Finally, the mash was liberally salted and peppered and placed under slices of broiled flank steak. (The steak was been rubbed with diced garlic and ginger and drizzled with olive oil.)
The steak was delicious. The rutabaga mash… um… well…I WANTED to love it. Really, I did. But, I suppose the truth is that not every food experience can be an epiphany. I liked the ginger and orange in the mash but I think it could have used some potatoes mixed in for consistency. In the end, I wish that rutabaga was as fun to eat as the word rutabaga is to say.
Should you decide to give rutabagas a try, these recipes look worth a go:
~Buttered Rutabaga with Herbs
~Rutabaga Apple Casserole
~a yummy looking soup
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February 16th, 2007 at 11:50 am
My mother always makes rutabaga for Thanksgiving and Christmas, so it’s a root vegetable I’m quite fond of. She usually just butters and salts it, so it tends to lack pizazz, but it’s a simple flavor. I’m sorry your experiment didn’t go quite to plan! Those suckers are hard to cut!
February 16th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
I haven’t gotten very fancy with rutabagas (and certainly have not seen them converse with ginger,) but love them in a simple roasted vegetable mix. I get a box of organic/ mostly local produce delivered to my house (www.organicstoyou.org– LOVE it) and often find things like turnips awaiting me. At this time of year I love to toss a couple different kinds of potato, including a sweet, with whatever root vegetables I have in my box– rutabagas, turnips, celery root, beets and parsnips all have gone in. They get cubed, tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper and baked in a hot oven for about 45 minutes. Definitely down home, comfort food, but I’ve been on a roasted root veggie kick for a couple of years now, and it doesn’t seem to be fading. One quick note, if you use red beets, you’ll want to keep them to the side until the roasting is complete because if they get stirred in, everything turns red.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
rutabaga! I have never heard that word before I thought they were universally known as turnips…
I would say they are a staple in a Scottish diet here, in soups, roasted, mashed - especially mashed on burns night when you traditionally have Haggis Neeps & Tatties - translated as Haggis (mashed) turnip & (mashed) potato
N
February 17th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Rutabaga! Reminds me of an old Green Acres TV show! (Hootersville rutabaga…!)
On a different note.. I really enjoy your posts. Got the link from my dau-in-law’s blog. AND.. I made your Red Velvet Cake to take to work on Valentine’s Day. I got lots of compliments (and I thought it was good too).
I feel cooking “from scratch” is one way of being creative.
February 18th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
I’ll have to give this recipe to my old roommate Jana…she loves rutabaga. Her mom would always make her a gigantic bowl of them and she’d hoard them in our community fridge. I don’t know why, but a lot of Dutch people call them rutabeggie. Hilarious.
February 19th, 2007 at 5:45 am
Try it with a bit of maple syrup and butter or olive oil, very tasty combination. Something that is quite nice is mixing your mashed rutabaga with mashed carrot, the two together are divine!
February 19th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Thank you for all of you comments. I am feeling more inspired to try them again with some of these ideas!
Mary - thanks for the Red Velvet feedback!
March 12th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
I recently switched jobs and therefore computers, losing all my links in the process. Just re-found you today, and am so pleased! Anyway, I, too, was a rutabaga virgin until a month or two ago, when I tried a winter soup with diced rutabaga and a bunch of other good roots. It’s a nice way of easing into rutabaga consumption, I think
If you click on my name, it’ll take you to the recipe.