Last night I made probably my best batch of homemade chicken noodle soup ever. I diced up a chunk of rutabaga that Mike chopped off for me on stew day. Wow did that ever make a difference! It lent a sweetness to my soup that really highlighted the other flavours (onions, celery, carrots, potatoes, chicken & herbs).
I guess my struggle with this waxy, hard-as-stone root vegetable has only just begun!
Does anyone know how to get into these things? My original original attempt at chopping it in half did not work and I ended up trying to peel it whole hoping that it was the rind that was causing my strife... but no... the peel came off relatively easily. It was definitely the root itself that was resisting my knife. After it was peeled, it turns out the only thing I could do was give up trying to hack at it and ask Mike to put some muscle into it.
I simply cannot have a vegetable in my kitchen that can beat me into a mere shell of a chef. It's just that... the soup... it was so much better with little cubes of rutabaga.
3 comments:
I guess that means you'll have to keep me around then.
It's nice to have job security.
while i don't have a technique for cracking the rutabaga, i do have a use for it... jamie oliver (aka the naked chef) has a recipe for 'mashed veg' in which you cut any root vegetable (carrots, yams, squash, parsnips, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and said aforementioned vegetable) into 'golf ball sized pieces' and boil until soft. Then you mash them together (like mashed potatoes) with olive oil, salt, and pepper. and voila! a *really* delicious (and more nutritious!) variation on mashed potatoes... they're sweet and savory all in the same bite!
Mmm... sounds good Jill.
I bet a bit of grated ginger and a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg would taste delish too!
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