Wednesday, May 16, 2007

jerusalem artichokes: not an artichoke OR from jerusalem

After a long, dreary day of cold weather and running errands after work, the logical answer for dinner would be take out. Since I was already at the grocery store, I decided to pick up a rotisserie chicken. Tasty and healthy; I thought it would be a suitable dinner. To make things even better, instead of greasy fries I decided to buy some jerusalem artichokes (also known as sunchokes). Once home, I cubed them and roasted them the way I would potatoes. Some olive oil, thyme, salt and pepper added to the intense sunchoke flavour. They were roasted for about 25 minutes at 425.
They are similar to potatoes but yet very different. First of all, they are more nutritious than potatoes. I am not a big fan of potatoes since they do not add many health benefits to our bodies but jerusalem artichokes are full of iron and low calorie to boot. They are loaded with iron, potassium, niacin, and thiamine, and are known to promote cardiovascular health and proper fat and sugar digestion. When raw they are ugly, deformed, little knobs but that is worth overlooking.

I'm sure you're wondering what they taste like...well, oddly enough, they taste like artichokes. They are a bit sweet, moist, and have a slight crispness to them. I highly recommend trying this vegetable if you haven't already. We roasted them, but they have much more potential...raw, in a soup, pureed, mashed...I can't wait to get some more and try out all the possibilities.

3 comments:

Annie Ruok said...

I recently saw sunchokes on cooking shows, but never realized that they are similar to potatoes...sounds like a healthy alternative for me instead of sweet potatoes all of the time!

Anonymous said...

I've had sunchoke puree in fancy restaurants but I did not know that they are so readily available in grocery stores. I will keep my eyes out for them.

Annie Ruok said...

I want to make sunchokes tonite but want to avoid using the oven in this heat - do u think they'll come out equally good wrapped in foil with some olive oil & seasonings wrapped in foil on the bbq grill (prepared like potatoes)? Let me know what u think pls!