‘What the heck is this?’ said Kristian, pulling a bulbous, green vegetable from our organic vegetable box this week.
I pride myself on knowing a lot about food, even the unusual, but this veggie had me stumped. I could not identify what was in Kristian’s hand.
After a bit of research (which included a google search of “Unusual Vegetables”) I found a picture of our new friend.
Kohlrabi.
I had heard the name before but I thought it was something totally different, believing it was related to ‘broccoli rabe’.
The next question was, ‘What am I going to do with this alien vegetable?’
Further research provided me with a few different uses for Kohlrabi. The most popular suggestion I found was to slice it up thinly and use it in salad. We tried this. It was delicious. Fresh and crunchy. The taste is actually quite similar to raw broccoli stem (I know this because my Mum always gave us raw broccoli stem as a snack when we were little. So healthy!)
Yes, the salad was great but I was keen for something more from this newly discovered vegetable.
I gained further inspiration from ‘A Couple Cooks’ who suggested grating it and making it into a fritter. I did just that and was pleasantly surprised.
I put my own spin on the recipe, adding paprika, cumin and spring onions to the mix. They came out beautifully!
These fritters have a lovely Middle Eastern flavour about them. When teamed with the mint yogurt, they are amazing! Kristian and I ate them for lunch, but they would also work wonderfully as a canapé. Just make the fritters a little smaller and serve the yoghurt in a small bowl on the side.
MAKES 14 FRITTERS
For the fritters:
1 medium (500g) kohlrabi, grated
2 medium carrots, grated
2 spring onions, finely chopped
2 eggs
½ cup gluten free flour
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon paprika
¼ cup olive oil, for frying
For the mint yoghurt:
5 tablespoons natural Greek yoghurt
1 ½ - 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh mint
Peel and grate the kohlrabi and the carrot. Squeeze out the excess water and then place in a medium sized bowl. Add the spring onions, eggs, flour, cumin, paprika and salt and pepper to taste and mix until it is well combined.
Heat a few of tablespoons of the oil in a frypan. Drop tablespoons of the mixture into the pan and flatten them out slightly using the back of a spoon. Cook on a low heat for a few minutes on each side, until they are crisp and golden.
Once cooked, place fritters on a plate lined with paper towel to soak up excess oil.
Repeat this process until all the fritters are cooked.
For the yoghurt, add mint and salt and pepper to taste to the yoghurt. Mix it well.
Serve the fritters with the yoghurt on the side and garnish with extra chopped mint.