I haven’t done any floral arrangement for a long time, because I work actually at a florist shop… paradoxical, but it’s true. I have now less time to create my bouquets on Sunday and my approach to floral art is a little different: that is why I arranged a round bouquet this week instead of a doing my arrangement directly in the vase, as usual.

However, I didn’t create a classical round bouquet. I put similar colors and flowers together instead of spreading them in the bouquet.

 Here is the bouquet from three angles :

 Flowers used :

 - Iris: Iris / Iris / 鸢尾

- Brassica: Kale / Chou / 甘蓝

- Limonium: Sea Lavender, Statice / Lavande de mer, Statice / 补血草，勿忘我，不凋花

I’m excessively pleased with my Thanksgiving floral arrangement. I found the green stuff and the adorable baby brassica at Whole Foods when I picked up my pies, and then I snipped some barberry from the yard.

I first encountered this strange vegetable at my friend Kathleen’s grocery store, Culinarium, which carries only produce and products from our native Ontario. It was a feature in the weekly farmers’ box – and, like me, many of the customers who encountered this alien-like member of the Brassica family, didn’t know where it came from, what it tasted like and more importantly what to do with it. Thanks to Wikipedia, here is all you ever wanted to know about the weird and wonderful Romanesco plus our newest Daily Apple recipe!

Native to the province of Ontario, Romanesco (or Roman Cauliflower as it’s often called) is an edible flower of the species Brassica oleracea and a variant form of cauliflower. Romanesco broccoli was first documented in Italy (as broccolo romanesco) in the sixteenth century. It is sometimes called broccoflower, but that name is also applied to green-curded cauliflower cultivars. It is also known as coral broccoli. It is rich in vitamin C, fiber, and carotenoids.

The vegetable resembles a cauliflower, but is of a light green color and the inflorescence (the bud) has an approximate self-similar character, with the branched meristems making a logarithmic spiral. The broccoli’s shape could be described as fractal; each bud is composed of a series of smaller buds, all arranged in yet another logarithmic spiral.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanesco_broccoli

Romanesco with Garlic & Parmesan

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil

1 head Romanesco – separated into perfect cactus-like florets!

2 cloves garlic – thinly sliced

1/4 cup organic veggie stock

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

salt & black pepper to taste

Preparation

Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and saute until fragrant. Add Romanesco until colour goes bright green. Add veggie stock and cover skillet to allow steam to cook unti crunchy-tender. Drain liquid and transfer vegetable to decorative serving platter. Cover with freshly grated cheese, coarse salt and pepper.

Bon Appetit!

Looks like Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors!

When we built our vege garden back in April, I planted a couple of punnets of mixed brassica.  I was looking forward to seeing what combination of plants I’d get.  Eventually three of the plants turned out to be broccoli (which were very yummy) however the rest of the plants have grown fabulous sized leaves but haven’t shown any sign of actually producing anything…

Super sized brassica plants

When I was sowing the first lot of spring vege seeds, I gave the remaining brassica plants an ultimatum.  If they hadn’t produced anything by the time the first lot of vege seedlings were ready to be planted out, the brassica plants would be going.  A couple of days later David asked me if I noticed the (quite large) cauliflower in the vege garden…

The secret cauli

Just waiting for the rest of the brassica plants to produce something now…

Starting today, Wednesday will be a day for Q & As from you — the Nutritioulicious readers.  Please post questions in the comments section or email me directly at Jessica@nutritioulicious.com to ask your burning food and nutrition questions. Every week I will post a featured question with an answer. I look forward to your questions! Let’s get the ball rolling with today’s Wednesday Wonder!

Q: Hi! I have been making smoothies every morning using kale and wanted to know if there is a nutritional difference between dinosaur kale and curly-leaf kale? — Eliza

A: Hi Eliza,

Great question, especially since kale is in season right about now. It’s great that you have been eating so much kale, since the nutritional benefits are really excellent. For those of you who don’t know, kale is a green, leafy vegetable in the Brassica family, which also includes broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, brussels sprouts, and collard greens. There are multiple types of kale, including red Russian kale, curly kale, ornamental kale, and dinosaur kale.

The primary difference between the different types of kale is in appearance and taste, not nutrition. Nutritionally, kale is a powerhouse of nutrients. It is very high in vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin C, and antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin. It is also a good source of  fiber and calcium, and has been found to have sulfur-containing phytonutrients that help prevent cancer. Kale is low in calories, containing 36 calories per 1 cup.

As for appearance and taste, curly kale (on the left in the picture below) has a wider, more ruffled leaf and a thick, fibrous stalk, and is usually a brighter shade of green than other varieties. It has a more pungent and bitter taste than other types of kale. Dinosaur kale (on the right in the picture below), also known as Lacinato kale, has narrower, darker leaves that are almost blue-green in color and has an embossed texture. It has a bit of a sweeter, more delicate taste than curly kale.

Curly Kale (left) and Dinosaur Kale (right)

Bottom line: Either variety of kale will provide you with nutritional benefits. Which you choose comes down to taste preferences.

When my organic box arrived last week, I found a long leafy green vegetable that I guessed was kale.  This kale, however, was different.  I’ve seen curly kale before, but never this.

I started doing some searching online for images. and finally hit upon dinosaur kale (also known as cavolo nero, apparently).  The google images I found were a match.  I wondered why it’s called dinosaur kale and started looking around for that, too.  I haven’t found any great answers and can only resort to taking a look at the etymology of the word dinosaur.  The Online Etymology Dictionary traces the word dinosaur back to Greek origins where  deinos = “terrible” + sauros = ”lizard.”  So judge for yourself, does my kale look terrible and lizard-like?

it’s been a strange old week and a bit.

involving migraines and hospitals and a bunchof daniel clowes graphic novels and drunks in masks and arguments and tears and coffin carrying (which frankly is rather unsettling) and abstinence (from alcohol and nail-biting (both equally tortuous)) and absinthe and talk of the future and a worsening of work relations and sleeping a lot (never a good sign) and vomit and… well you get the navelgazing picture.

tumultuous.  i like words with ‘uou’ in them.  where was i?  oh yeah tumultuous.  and brainbombs aside (who can catch me in the pits of misanthropy and make me want to kill and rape hence not the best listen just now) this little wonder has been the soundtrack to a distinctly music free time.  other than a jim reeves funereal mix…

is it a suitably synchronous aural accompanier?  mostly yes.  it’s a chimeric bugger.  shuffling between drone and hazy chamber music and percussive klang and twinkle and a dose of the old concrete.  in a way it’s fitting (personally speaking) that it soothes, excites and disturbs in equal measure, flitting between dreamy violence and delicate unease.  or maybe i’m just reaching, reading too much into it, huh amateur psychologists?

so max bondi.  i have the tiny wee public guilt cd collaboration he did with destructo swarmbot bianca ala muerte (who guests on morendo).  featuring a mélange of processed guitars and cryptic vox noises, veering between dreamy shoegazery and glitch e-lec-tri-city and detuned guitar and noise bastardry.

m presents much the same ingredients here (though with nothing like still’s wall of soothing aural brutality).  from the opening organ drone wheeze and crystal chzing and clinklings of aleph, bet all the way to the closing water? noise and muzzy woozy fuzz of elonco this is a record of textures, of tactile touchable noise and sounds.  all made on guitar and drums and keys and objects amplified and manipulated and soothingly stroked and viciously (mis)treated

it would have slotted in quite nicely, with minimal greasing, on constellation back in the day, particularly on the cello based alina (with oli from bhn) or when reminding me how ace hangedup’s clatter was on volante!  all kinetic percussion and the squeal and squall of building string throb.

two swollen beasts form the heart of the album.  in such seeming all things are is a swooning choral piece of discordant hymnal hypno drone.  and the sixteen minute a desperate threnody glides easily from abstraction to celestial cum industrial guitar and/or synth drone (not too far removed from emeralds or james ferraro’s ethereal shimmerings) to metallic piano klang to decaying static crunch and hiss.

it’s another treat from tartaruga.  the fifth (since i’m including the sourpuss dvd).  all wrapped in the usual beautiful swaddling clothes – limited edition, hand numbered, insert and silkscreened card sleeve illustrated by bruno jones.  perfection.  again.

bondispace / tartaruga / public guilt

previously on tartaruga:

1. bleeding heart narrative: as if yearning was all and more…
2. brassica: the conveyor belt
3. quinta: at the top of bear hill

I’ve been waiting for my Early Green broccoli to show me some… well broccoli. Finally I found something today. Of course you’ll notice in my garden picture that I misplaced some broccoli. My Brassica family crops (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts) got a little messed up. They all look the same when they’re little seedlings. I think I know what everything is now. Cabbage is easy to pick out and if it doesn’t come up with a cauliflower or broccoli it’s a brussels sprout.

I added a couple more pictures today. The lettuce is Green Towers Romaine and the loose leaf red lettuce is Four Seasons.

Been meaning to upload this for a while now. A couple of minutes of scratchy violins and white noise before it kicks in but be patient: it’s worth it. At nearly 9 minutes, it’s not quite long enough. And I’m more of a 3 minute man myself…. Seriously, this tune is amazing folks.

Brassica is London-based experimental producer Michael Anthony Wright. I don’t know much about him and there’s not much on the web but this is by far his most commercial sounding release. The Centre is a kind of mutant disco number, released a few months ago on the hugely exciting new London label Dissident. The sound is complex. It almost feels like some lost masterpiece from way back, yet it’s unmistakably now, fusing Italo, Detroit techno, and a melancholia that reminds me of Slint or God Speed You Black Emperor more than anything electronic. I bet it sounds incredible on the right dancefloor. 

Well that’s enough waxing lyrical. Have a listen, comment, spread the love. 

mediafire: Brassica – The Centre

Buy this, and other Dissident releases here

http://www.myspace.com/brassica

  

 

 

Brassica Beds (and a couple other cold crops)

The spring broccoli is played out and it’s time to reuse much of this space in my garden.  All of the Broccoli is going to be uprooted and composted this week if the ground dries out a bit.  After the broccoli makes me a main flower head and a few side shoots I reuse the space for Kentucky Wonder bush beans.

The cabbage gets to stay for a while

The cabbages are growing very well with minimal bug damage so far.  I guess it has been too wet for white butterflies to come around.  They are going to stay until I have enough to start a crock of sauerkraut. 

Up next... Green Beans!

So I’ll get another bed of green beans started as soon as the ground will allow.  I love green beans and they are so easy in my climate / backyard.

I need to figure out when to start my fall broccoli seedlings.  First frost comes October 14th, on average.

Alice in one of her brassica beds

Alice grow her garden to harvest green leaves during winter. She’s very consistent in this, more so than I’ve seen by other gardeners. This makes her garden a very interesting wonderland. She grows a lot of brassicas, and select hardy varieties. The hardiness is naturally selected, as Alice save a lot of the seeds in her own garden, year after year.

Savoy Cabbage sown in autumn

Alice shared her knowledge on autumn sowing of cabbage for an early harvest next year. About being dependent on the autumn weather after sowing. If it’s too warm, the cabbage grow to a size where the low winter temperature induce flowering in the spring. If you try avoiding this by sowing later, the seeds might not sprout until spring, and you will not harvest earlier than if springsown. This spring half the savoy cabbage have gone to flowers, but the other half very soon form big heads. Alice tells she avoid saving seeds from these early bloomers. I didn’t ask, but I guess she harvest the savoy heads when mature, and then leave the roots and stalks to form flowers and produce seeds.

Most plants grow where nature let the seed meet the soil

As Alice produce a lot of her own seed, there is a lot of seed scatter. In spring they germinate, and Alice has to sow very little. Instead the best volunteers are transplanted or eaten at the babyleaf stage, and the rest treated as weed. In the photo is among other vegetables a row of spinach beet she will harvest during the next winter.

Italian Winter savory (Satureja montana), or would it be a kind of thyme (Thymus sp.)?

The Italian Winter savory was remarquable. First I thought it was an unusual lemon thyme, a bit similar to my own. A green carpet, an aromatic herb with a note of thyme. The Italian Winter Savory she found at a local greengrocer as and ordinary kitchen windowsill herb years ago. She is not really sure, if it is a Winter savory or perhaps a weird kind of thyme. It sets no seed, although there is both ordinay Winter savory and thyme in the garden to interbreed with. It’s an efficiant groundcover – Alice tells a little plant will cover a square meter in a year, it flowers in may and is perfectly hardy in Denmark, even in clay soils. I got a bit of it, and now it has to be kept within its boundaries, either by me or neighboring plants!

Alice’s frontgarden

The frontgarden is full of romantic flowers, a flowering meadow. It seemed to have flowers for all seasons. This peticular day the columbines, geraniums and veronicas were the super stars. It must have taken a lot of years to find the right balance between the many species, and Alice told, that the Thalictrums tended to take over, so every year she will pick out a lot of them.

One of the many small nurseries in the garden

Alice is a generous woman, and here and there in the garden you will find a little nursery. She is potting up a lot of plants, giving them tender loving care, until they leave for the right home. No reason to fear the killerslugs, though they live in the neighborhood. She use nematodes, and no plant seems to leave the garden without a douche of nematode water. The garden lies next to a meadow and a lake. Even if she keep the killeslugs at stake so they don’t bother her, they reinvade her garden again and again from the meadow.

Alice sets out to clean seeds of Musk-mallow (Malva moschata)

Alice is a routined seed saver. It’s a pleasure to see her clean a large batch of Musk-mallow seed in no time. The dried seeds are in the barrel. She rub and turns the seeds vigoriously a few minutes. Then she dives to the bottom retrieving hands full of released seeds. She sift them through old outworn kitchen sieves with different mesh sizes. In this way she first get rid of the rough debris, then the fine debris smaller then the seeds. The final touch is blowing the last debris ower the edge of a flat tray. All done in five minutes!

Thanks for a great garden experience.
Slightly changed on 9th. of july 2009, as Alice gave me feedback.

In this series I’ll show some of my first floral arrangements.

I bought most of the flowers at Monceau Fleurs, a French franchise chain of florists positionned as economical and revolutionary. They have a foluma (not at every retalor) of 5 bunches for 10 euros. The flowers are not, of course, of the highest quality. They can last in average one week. But I really think it’s a good marketing operation which makes the chain competitive. As far as I’m concerned, I like choosing my 5 bunches in Sunday afternoon and taking my time to arrange a bouquet at home…

  Flowers in this bouquet:

- Agapanthus : African Lily / Agapanthus / 百子莲

- Brassica : Kale / Chou ornemental / 羽衣甘蓝（叶牡丹）

- Matthiola incana : Stock / Giroflée / 紫罗兰

- Eucalyptus : Eucalyptus / 桉树

- Rosa : Rose / 玫瑰

Woad is famous as the source of the blue dye that has been used to dye wool and other fibres for several thousand years in Europe and the Middle East. The pigment is extracted from the dark blue-green, spinach-like woad leaves.

The Woad Plant
Woad (Isatis tinctoria) is a native of the Mediterranean and belongs to the family Cruciferae, more commonly known as the brassicas, and is closely related to broccoli, cabbage and rape seed. Woad grows readily and is considered a noxious weed in some states of the USA.

Woad is a biennial plant and grows for two years before dying down. In the first year, it forms a low-growing cluster of leaves like spinach. The leaves are harvested for dye production in the first year only, because they have little or no colour when they reach the second year.

In the second year, the leaves become longer and thinner and the woad plant looks quite different. It produces tall stems up to five or six feet in height with sprays of small, neon yellow flowers. The flowers, which appear in May, have a wonderful fragrance and attract plenty of bees. The black seeds that follow are winged, resembling small tongues and after producing seeds, the plant dies down.

Woad Blues
Dyeing with woad is very exciting. Wool or fabric is dipped into the vat, left for a few minutes, and then removed. At first the wool is pale yellow, but with exposure to air, the colour gradually turns to green and then to blue. This change in colour never ceases to fascinate viewers.

Woad is also very economical; 10 grams of woad pigment, for example, dyes more than 200 grams of wool a beautiful medium blue, and at least another 100 grams of wool a light blue.

Traditionally a fermentation vat was used to dye with woad, often started with stale urine. The fermentation removes the oxygen from the vat making the woad pigment soluble. Nowadays, chemicals such as spectralite are usually used to remove the oxygen from the vat.

Woad and the ancient Brits
Woad is native to the Mediterranean, originating in Turkey and the Middle East, from where it spread into Europe and has been in use as a dye plant since the Neolithic, 5 to 10,000 years ago.

Many people have heard that when Julius Caesar’s army invaded Britain in 55 BC, the Romans saw Picts painted blue with woad. There is a great deal of controversy regarding this statement, as it is unlikely that the Roman army, which was mainly in the south, ever came across any Picts, who lived in the north of Scotland. Further, woad is difficult to use as body paint and not suitable for tattoos.

Woad as an anti-cancer agent
It is not only a blue dye that can be extracted from woad; the woad plant has also become a weapon in the fight against breast cancer. Recent research has found that this plant has 20 times more of the anti-cancer chemical glucobrassicin than broccoli. It is difficult to extract the chemical from broccoli, so woad provides an effective alternative. Woad can produce even more of this chemical if the young leaves are damaged. Do not try to eat woad though as this plant is not edible.

Wearing woad
Have your heard the Woad Song? The last stanza goes like this;

March on Snowdon with your woad on,
Never mind if you get rained or snowed on
Never want a button sewed on.
Go it Ancient Britons!

Today there is enough information available on the internet to allow you to grow your own woad, extract the blue pigment, dye some local wool and knit a blue scarf to wear when you are next climbing Snowdon (or your local mountain peak)!

About the author:
Teresinha Roberts is a Brazilian-born textile artist with an MSc in Biology and a City & Guilds in Embroidery. She specialises in natural dyes and is a member of the Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers. Teresinha is regularly invited to talk to weavers, spinners, dyers, embroiderers, botanical and environmental groups, amongst others.

Visit our website at http://www.woad.org.uk/ today to buy woad pigments, woad dyed silk scarves and to learn on how to grow woad, extract the blue dye and use it.

Nothing quite like a quiet Bank Holiday weekend!

I expect the Tamworth gilt to have her very first piglets by tomorrow so I am spending the day trotting between the garden and her pen and to cheer her up along the way I am bearing little gifts of weeds [fat hen] and shot lettuces.

In the meanwhile my Jethro has just resorted to the largest scale farm machinery he has in order to prepare the brassica bed for planting out of the many seedlings. The untilled ground in the veg garden has set like cement and the rotavator, which he normally uses could not cope with the rock hard ground. I hope to post a picture later it is really too funny to see!

However, the total lack of precipitation is beginning to look very serious with yields of grain, hay, silage and British grown vegetables all predicted to be well down. We may enjoy the dry weather to work in every day but by golly the land needs the rain. Even if we get a lot of rain now it may actually be too late for some crops. A very dry April AND May is unusual.

Beginning as a miserable and wet day and ending boring and overcast…

That aside, completed in the garden today was the task of butterfly proofing the brassica cage to almost air-tight standard. Yes, the long awaited debris net arrived today via FedEx.

As I had been reliably informed, the netting I was previously using (10mm general garden netting) was not up to standard as it could in fact be easily breached by today’s evermore cunning cabbage white butterfly, I deemed the scaffolding netting a necessary purchase.

Anyway, the brassica patch cage was transformed from this:

to this…

As I imagine a refund on the netting would be out of the question, it is now being used to support the peas and beans. I have a bit left over that will be used to protect the soft fruit plants aswell.

Also, as I now own a rather large amount of netting, another cage was added. This one is over the patch where the potatoes were going to be. Since the aminopyralid realisation I am just growing crops that tolerate the herbicide in the various affected areas to make best use of the available space. My brassicas this year are brussels sprouts, cabbage and swede.

An inspired greenhouse viewing area, a slight bi-product to be honest but a great feature nonetheless:

Further jobs today included putting the runner beans into the ground and the companion sweet peas. Hoping theres no more frost.

Groundbreaking advancements in the realm of space engineering may soon see the moon sown with the first gardens to grow on the lunar surface. As part of the Google Lunar X Prize, Paragon Space Development Corporation has recently teamed with Odyssey Moon to develop a pressurized mini greenhouse to deploy on the surface of the moon, grow a plant from seed, and hopefully see it flower and seed itself. It’s a complicated endeavor, but it marks a critical stage of development for extending life beyond the confines of our planet.

In order to successfully grow a plant on the moon, Paragon has developed a very specialized greenhouse that can safely contain a plant and provide it with all elements it needs to survive. The greenhouse will need to protect the plant from the sun’s intense rays while providing it with enough water, balanced soil, and carbon dioxide while removing its waste oxygen. They are basically creating a space suit for the plant.

For this trial, Paragon has chosen a species within Brassica (the mustard family), due to their quick growth and the abundance of knowledge about the plant. A typical Brassica needs 14 days of light in order to grow, flower and then set seed. A lunar day is 14 Earth days long, so if the landing is timed perfectly, it will allow just enough time for the plant to grow to maturity and possibly re-seed. That is if everything goes as planned on the Lunar Oasis Lander, which Paragon and Odyssey Moon are developing.

Growing a plant in a controlled environment on the moon will be a groundbreaking development, because this is a crucial step to colonizing life outside of the Earth’s atmosphere. Whatever you think about expanding beyond our own limits, the technology to be able to sustain life in such harsh conditions is pretty incredible – it would be amazing to see the accelerated footage of a plant growing in space.

The plant growth payload is just one aspect of the Lunar Oasis Lander being developed for the Google Lunar X Prize. The competition will award $30 million to the first private company to land a craft on the moon by 2012. As part of the requirements, the craft must safely land, send live video feed back to Earth, travel at least 500 meters across the surface, send more video and carry a payload. Paragon is specifically responsible for the plant payload as well as the lander design and thermal controls systems. Interestingly enough, the CEO of Paragon, Taber MacCallum, and his wife Jane Poytner are experts in closed biological systems – they were two of the eight people who spent two years inside of Biosphere 2 in Arizona.

On an otherwise miserable day weatherwise, a lot has been completed this bank holiday monday.

Firstly, upon opening the newly created coldframe this morning and leaning it against the conveniently positioned runner bean frame behind it, a heavy gust of wind brought it back down and managed to smash three panes of glass. Luckily I wasn’t stood inside it and should really consider myself lucky to be alive! (The gap in the ‘air tight’ seal has now been filled with a couple of binbags nailed to the wood.)

Note to self – build working locking device into coldframe asap to reduce mid-morning fatality risks to closer to zero.

Secondly, the weather today has been truly miserable. The worst I’ve been out in for at least a month. This however didn’t give me any excuse to put off the work that was required:

• runner beans had to be potted on
• tomatoes for school plant sale had to be potted on
• another batch of carrots, salad onions, beetroot and lettuce had to be sown

Later in the day, browsing through the forums of allotment.org.uk I came across a post regarding ‘nettle tea’ – a fertiliser for brassicas. This interested me and as there is a rather large patch of nettles doing little more than stinging me every time I walk past I decided to give it a go. Instructions are as follows:

Into a bin or suitable bucket, add 1 gallon of water for every 2lb of nettles. Leave for two to three weeks, stirring occasionally. After this period, dilute liquid at a ratio of 1:10 anduse to water plants.

Apparently this is meant to enrich the soil with nitrogen and is consequently a good idea to use on brassicas as they are ‘nitrogen hungry plants’ ~ apparently!

The first lettuce of the season was eaten this evening. The first crop of 2009 however was three stems of rhubarb that were eaten on Friday…

Furthermore, debris netting is now on order to cover the brassicas 2MX50M of it! I was using some bog standard 10mm netting but apparently this isn’t up to the job, I was informes on the forum, as the cabbage whites just stroll through it and take even greater pleasure in laying their eggs.

At least I can end my hunt for comfrey now after my discovery of ‘nettle tea’.

Goal 47: This has been my eating style for 2009. While I have the basic format together, I need to refine it for publishing it on the web. I plan to do this by the end of July.

Brassica is a genus of plants is amazing for three reasons:

1. They have a variety of phytochemicals that appear to have antioxidant properties and help prevent cancer.

2. Contain more important agricultural and horticultural crops than any other genus.

3. Almost all parts of some species or other have been developed for food, including the root (swedes, turnips), stems (kohlrabi), leaves (cabbage, brussel sprouts), flowers (cauliflower, broccoli), and seeds (mustard seed, oilseed rape).

Kohlrabi or also called German Turnip.

(sources used: wikipedia.org)

This perfect vegetable with its ridiculous Alien look and “tentacles” is often forgotten in the bottom drawers of the fridge, until its slowly going off.

Kohlrabi raw

If you ask me only because people know way too little about this little gem. Believe it or not but it belongs to the family Brassica Oleracea Gongylodes Group, or in easier terms Cabbages, Broccoli and Cauliflower.

Kohlrabi’s taste when eaten raw resembles a crispy and juicy Apple, however less sweet, the Texture resembles more a stem of broccoli or a cabbage Heart. Smaller Kohlrabi’s are better as the texture didn’t turn “woody” yet, so smaller then 8 cm in diameter would be best. Kohlrabi can be found both White, Purple and Green which is more common, they can be eaten as well raw as cooked, and also the stems and leaves can be eaten.

Kohlrabi is grown from July to November in Northern Europe, is a good source of Vitamin C, as well as magnesium and phosphorous, which are useful in the absorption of calcium.

The name Kohlrabi comes from German Language and means literally “Cabbage Turnip”.

This fine specimen is off course weeks old as I had to peel away almost all of its intersting leaves as they were all yellow and hanging down. As with everything freshness is paramount, but blucky for me this vegetable can easily keep for weeks without the main bulb deteriorating.

Kohlrabi in Creamy Dill Sauce

Ingredients

350 Gram Kohlrabi quartered
225 Gram Carrots shredded
25 Gram Butter
1 Cup Chicken Stock
1/2 Teaspoon Fresh Chopped Dill
150 Ml Cream
Salt and Pepper 

1 Tablespoon Corn Starch

 

Method:

1. Thickly peel the kohlrabi to remove the woody outer layer. Slice thinly and cook with the carrots, butter and stock for about 10 minutes, until tender.
2. Blend the Corn Starch with very little cold water and mix under the vegetable stew. Stir well.
3. Return to the boil and stir in the Cream and Dill, adjust seasoning and serve hot with your main dish.  

 

Raw and Cooked

Raw and cooked close up