It’s January. Potatoes aren’t in season. What can you serve instead?
How about rutabagas? That’s one solution offered by Anna Garvey, who sells rutabagas along with a range of other vegetables at the Saturday and Wednesday morning Peachtree City Farmers Market and the Thursday evening Farmers Market at Sweet Apple Village.
The rutabaga is a relative of the turnip, a little sweeter than its white-fleshed cousin and likely to grow to a much larger size. Sometimes, a rutabaga can be hard to distinguish from a turnip. Garvey sells them side by side at her booth and uses the similarity to start a dialogue with her customers.
If the turnips and rutabagas are about the same size, the only way to tell them apart is to cut into them. White flesh? Turnip. Pale yellow flesh? Rutabaga.
“I suggest they cook the rutabaga like a potato, boiling it a little bit to make it tender and then cooking it with greens, or roasting them. That’s how I cooked mine for dinner tonight,” said Garvey.
“When they hear it’s a rutabaga, they think those are too hard to cook,” said Garvey. That’s because they’re thinking of the large storage rutabagas they find at the grocery store, covered in wax to keep them from dehydrating.
A rutabaga will keep for months if you have a place to store it that is between 32 and 40 degrees, says Garvey, and has a humidity level of 90 to 90 percent. Since those are hard conditions to provide if you don’t have a root cellar, grocery store rutabagas are dipped in wax to keep the moisture in.
If left on the counter, rutabagas from the farmers market will start to shrivel in a day or two. Use a plastic bag to hold in the moisture and store them in the refrigerator. They’ll keep for weeks.
Garvey plants American Purple Top rutabagas, putting out seed in September. The roots take about three months to get large enough to harvest, and then they can stay in the ground to be harvested as needed. If they’re not gone by the time the weather warms up, they will get pithy and the harvest is over.
Freezes like those that hit the metro area in January can kill the tops back to the root, but the roots will survive and send out new leaves. Garvey likes to cook the leaves, too. And she started a new crop in January to have rutabagas to bring to market in the spring.
Rutabaga can be boiled, steamed, roasted, served raw, marinated, braised or pureed. Try caramelizing a few cubes with bacon or brushing slices with maple syrup and bake until tender. Ingredients like maple syrup and honey play up the natural sweetness of the roots.
For sale at local farmers markets
Vegetables: arugula, Asian greens, beets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, celery, chard, collards, endive, escarole, fennel, frisee, herbs, kale, leeks, lettuce, mushrooms, mustard greens, olives, parsnips, radishes, rutabaga, spinach, spring onions, sweet potatoes, turmeric, turnips.
From local reports
Lobby Bar and Bistro’s Rutabaga with Honey
Hands on: 15 minutes
Total time: 1 hour
Serves: 4
Lobby Bar and Bistro’s chef Russell Hayes provided this recipe and wrote, “When I was at JOEL, I started to work with rutabagas and I cooked them sous vide a lot and really started to like this vegetable. This recipe is a simple technique that doesn’t overwhelm them.”
The cooking time will vary by the age of the rutabagas you’re cooking. The fresher the rutabaga, the shorter the cooking time.
1 pound rutabaga, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
1 tablespoon honey
6 sprigs thyme
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 1/4 cups chicken stock, more or less depending on baking dish
Salt and pepper
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a one-quart baking dish.
In baking dish, combine rutabaga cubes, honey, thyme and garlic. Toss together, then add enough chicken stock to cover the cubes halfway. Cover dish with foil and bake until cubes are tender but not mushy, about 45 minutes. Remove from oven, season to taste and serve hot or warm.
Per serving: 89 calories (percent of calories from fat, 10), 5 grams protein, 15 grams carbohydrates, 3 grams fiber, 1 gram fat (trace saturated), no cholesterol, 36 milligrams sodium.
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