Food & Wine (December 2014)
We have a confession to make: We breathe a little sigh of relief when our six-month CSA season ends every November.
Don't get us wrong, we love our CSA and the weekly joy of getting fresh, organic and truly wonderful vegetables. But after six months of pick-ups, we're ready for a break. It's awesome getting armfuls of greens and vegetables every week, but figuring out how to make use of all of it can be overwhelming.
Our CSA ended just before Thanksgiving. The shares at the end were predictably wintery: squash, some hearty greens, the remainder of the garlic. You get the picture.
But the season also ended with sunchokes. Lots and lots of sunchokes. By the end of the share, we had stowed at least 4 pounds of them in our crisper drawer.
So it was a forgone conclusion that we'd make Food & Wine's Salad of the Month: Roasted Sunchokes with Brown Butter-Cider Vinaigrette.
Sunchokes, or Jersualem artichokes, are a divisive little root. We hear from readers who love them and readers who loathe them. There's only one thing about them we truly dislike: Our sunchokes, fresh from the CSA farm, are truly filthy. Filthy and beautiful, but still, filthy. And because they're so gnarly and craggy, cleaning them can be a chore.
But we're fans. We've always enjoyed sunchokes, usually
pan roasted.
This salad is darn simple: Roast sunchokes for an hour, then toss with spinach and a light dressing of browned butter and apple cider vinegar.
Our only quibble here is that our sunchokes never really got crispy. The recipe doesn't aim for that (it's looking for "golden and tender"). But we would have preferred the sunchokes with a slight bit of crisp. Next time, we'd try this at a higher heat and try to get more of a crisp final product.
Even if you or your guests are sunchoke virgins, this is a nice introductory dish. It's light, a little sweet, a little spicy, and a really solid winter salad.
Sunchokes: Are you a fan or foe?
Roasted Sunchokes with Brown Butter-Cider Vinaigrette
Food & Wine (December 2014), recipe by Jamie Malone
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(this photo: Christina Holmes for Food & Wine)
Active time: 20 minutes; Total time: 1 hour
Serves 4 to 6
INGREDIENTS
2 pounds sunchokes (Jerusalem artichokes), scrubbed and cut into 1-inch pieces
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 thyme sprigs
8 garlic cloves, crushed
Kosher salt
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons minced shallots
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 teaspoon honey
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
Black pepper
2 cups fresh spinach leaves
1/4 cup chopped chives
METHOD
Preheat the oven to 375°. On a baking sheet, toss the sunchokes, oil, thyme sprigs and garlic and season with salt. Roast for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally, until golden and tender. Discard the thyme sprigs and garlic. Transfer the sunchokes to a large bowl.
Meanwhile, in a saucepan, cook the vinegar over moderate heat until reduced to 2 tablespoons, 3 minutes. Transfer to a bowl. Stir in the shallots, crushed red pepper and honey.
Wipe out the saucepan. Add the butter and cook over moderate heat until golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Whisk the butter into the vinegar mixture and season with salt and pepper.
Add the spinach, chives and vinaigrette to the sunchokes; season with salt and pepper and toss to coat. Serve warm.
