Saturday 14 July 2012

Elisabeth Bond’s Kohlrabi


From Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book, Penguin Books, 1980.

When I am looking for ideas for a particular vegetable I usually turn to Jane Grigson’s marvellous book. It includes a section on the vegetable with its history together with many other interesting titbits of information. All is told in the author’s friendly and humorous style which always finds me delving further into the book than I usually intend.

When I turned to Kohlrabi and began to read, Grigson’s style was evident from the start: ‘There are better vegetables than kohlrabi. And worse.” She is not particularly fond of this vegetable it seems. However she gives it a full commentary and then includes information on preparation of it together with several recipes.


The recipe I chose was one which apparently turned Grigson’s dislike for the kohlrabi ‘into muted enthusiasm’. This seemed to me to be the one to use.


The kohlrabi was halved and sliced thinly. Butter and olive oil were heated in a pan and a tablespoon of sugar added. This was stirred until it had browned slightly into a caramel. The vegetable was added and stirred around, then left to cook with the lid on. A dessertspoon of flour was now stirred in and enough stock to make a sauce of the liquid in the pan. With seasoning added the vegetable was ready.


The kohlrabi still was crunchy enough to be enjoyable and the sweet sauce blended well with it. It was a reasonable accompanying dish.

Taste: ✔✔✔
Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

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