Sun 18 Jan, 2009
This week was a week of removing old veggies from my shelves. I had acquired many root vegetables, and my neighbor grows rosemary in his front yard, so I thought I’d do the New England traditional roasted vegetables. This involves many root vegetables, that I had acquired quite a period of time, put into a large pan and then merely set the oven until cooked.
I suppose I could have roasted them on an open fire, and in fact I have been meaning to test my fireplace out, but for now I just cheated and used the conventional oven.
The tubers were:
- Half a butternut squash
- A few potatoes
- A turnip
- A parsnip
- A rutabaga
- A sweet potato (aka yam)
- A couple carrots
- Elephant garlic (three elephants for a dollar!)
- And seasoned with olive oil, salt, and rosemary
I simply chopped everything up into bite sizes, and dumped them into a cast iron pan. Stirred them up with olive oil, salt, and rosemary. Threw them in the oven at 375, and took them out about once every 20-30 minutes to stir them and verify their done-ness. Unfortunately, I had washed them right before using them, so somehow a layer of water got in there. I was hoping it would steam out fast enough, but clearly it’s too humid around here and it stayed for most of the cooking. Fortunately, I did manage to bake them to be tasty and not to soggy as feared.
After chopping up all the tubers, I found myself with a considerable amount that would not fit in the skillet. I had an idea–I made a butternut curry once before, how would various other tubers work for a curry base? Or for that matter, a mix? I took the tubers that didn’t fit and boiled them until soft. Then I set about my usual curry recipe but with throwing in the tubers and mashing them into a sauce. The rutabagas did not mash so well, so I let them go into the curry as chunks, but mashed the rest.
Instead of a list of ingredients, I offer you a picture:
That’s cilantro and spinach in back in bowls, anaheims and thai peppers on the left of the plate, string beans on the back of the plate, a daikon, carrot and zucchini, ginger and garlic, and tofu on the left. The onion was not actually used. Actually, I don’t think the carrot was either. I sauteed peppers, ginger (I generally chop the ginger, then crush the choppings), and garlic, and then added the tuber mush, then the tofu. Let the melt together for a while and then chop and add the remaining veggies (daikon, zucchini, string beans, spinach). Add the cilantro in last and don’t really cook it; just stir it in.
It was tasty! It was declared this was one of my best curries yet. I wasn’t as pleased with it as the eaters were, but they certain made happy noises. The roasted tubers also got a lot of happy noises, although I would say this was not my best roasted tubers day. Also, I only used rosemary–if I were more together I’d use oregano and sage and I’m not sure what else.
Steel Phoenix says:
According to Wikipedia: The sweet potato is commonly confused with a yam in parts of North America, although they are only very distantly related to the other plant widely known as yams (in the Dioscoreaceae family), which is native to Africa and Asia.
Hey, that sounds pretty good! The water probably just came out of the vegetables. Adding a bit more room for steam to vent might help. I’d add some spices to the curry if you weren’t quite happy with it. Some top contenders: Turmeric (fresh or powder), cumin, fenugreek (grind well and don’t overcook), coconut milk, maybe some coriander or caraway.