This week we are cooking with Rutabaga, chosen by Ulrike. Rutabagas are popular in Germany where Ulrike lives. I chose to make fries with mine as I figured that was the best chance I had to get Mark onboard to eat the rutabaga. Here is the recipe I used for Rutabaga Fries if you would like to make some for yourself: click here.
The ingredients: rutabaga, cooking oil (I used olive oil), salt, and pepper.
I followed the recipe using only one large rutabaga (one large rutabaga makes a lot of fries) and I only used half of the amount of oil suggested as it seemed a little much to me (I used maybe a scant two tablespoons of oil for the whole batch).
I liked this recipe as it showed me how to cut the rutabaga into fries. Rutabagas sold in the supermarkets here are waxed so you need to remove the outer peel for sure. I had never actually worked with a waxed vegetable before and I learned a lot about that...first, your vegetable peeler probably won't work to removed the waxed peel, mine didn't, so I had to cut the peel off with a knife which was not a big deal. The wax, however gets on the cutting board and you have to scrape it off with something after you finish, again, not a big deal, but it was interesting to see how all that works.
Instead of baking the rutabaga fries in the oven, I used the air fryer and it took 12 minutes at 400 degrees (I just selected the root vegetable setting and it did it all for me and worked just perfectly). The fries taste just like regular potato fries to us and Mark was willing to eat them as well…which is saying something as he wasn’t too thrilled when I brought home that really big ugly rutabaga and said I was going to make something with it. Neither of us had really ever had rutabaga before so this was a fun week to try something new. I think next I’ll try it like a mashed potato recipe and see how that goes as a couple of my fellow cooks said that was a good use of this vegetable. And, of course, it’s always fun to see what the others in the group made with theirs and try their recipes. Definitely worthy of repeat status.
To see what the others made with their Rutabagas, you can click on the members’ blogs listed here: Peggy, Margaret, Ulrike, Donna, Ellen, and Nancy,
Next up is Leeks/Onions, chosen by myself, posting date on March 12. If you would like to join in, just leave a link to your post in any of the comment sections of the participants and we will come and see what you made.