Blankity Blank Heirlooms

Heirlooms used to be the stuff that arrived in a cardboard box after great aunt Gertrude kicked the bucket. Things that were passed down . The odd chair, a string of pearls, the family silver, usually not potatoes....or any other vegetable for that matter. Until things started to change. Many years ago many vegetables roamed the earth. Different shapes, different colors, different sizes and then all of a sudden...they were gone all was silence and there was just...the big brown lump we know today as The Potato.
Once upon a time there were lots of potatoes and they all had great names...the Adora, The Agria, The All Blue, The Atlantic, The Austrian Crescent,The Bintje, The Dakota, The Carola Rose, The Desiree, The Inca Gold, The Irish Cobbler,The Ozette, The Purple Majesty,. you get the drift. It all started when Alan and I downloaded the documentary The Botany of Desire. I highly recommend it, especially the segment on potatoes and how we went from all these exciting varieties to just one or two or three. Living in the country I'm exposed to a great variety of vegetables and half the fun of cooking them is getting to know them. Up close and personal. By name.
Last week there was a special table at the Sonoma Market and on it was a hand lettered sign from a local grower Blankity Blank Produce. The table was piled with potatoes and they all had names. The German Butterball, The Red Chieftain, The Princess La Ratte. I was hooked.
I scooped up the German Butterballs, which are in the picture above, and also the Princess La Batte which is a fingerling variety. I would have had a picture of them too, but I ate them and the camera did not have a fast enough lens for that.
I couldn't wait to serve the German Butterballs. Indian cuisine offers a lot of potato dishes from one end of the subcontinent to the other, and one of my favorite is made with new potatoes but I figured it would work just as well with the German Butterballs.
I took my 6 German Butterballs. I washed but didn't peel them. I sliced and diced them. I took a one inch piece of ginger chopped it and placed it in the blender with 3 Tbs of water and 1/2 tsp of turmeric.
Here's what to do next.
1.) In a deep skillet or Karhai heat 2 Tbs of vegetable oil.
When it's hot, toss in
2.) 1/4 tsp of cumin seeds
stir fry it for a beat and when it starts to turn color add in
3.) the ginger paste
Cook it for one minute then put in
4.) 1 green chili seeded and thinly sliced
Stir fry it for about 30 seconds and then
5.) Add in the potatoes. Fry them for abouit 5 minutes and keep them moving in the pan. No sticking!
After about 5 minutes addd in
6.) 1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Turn the heat down and continue to cook the potatoes stirring them and keeping them moving for another 5 minutes. Now toss in
7.) 1 1/4 tsp of salt
8.) 1 tsp of garam masala
9.) 1 Tbs of ground coriander
10.) 2 Tbs of lemon juice and about
11.) 3 Tbs of water.
Stir it all up and lower the heat, keep the potatoes cooking for another 25 minutes or so till it's done. Stir them every 10 minutes or so.
These potatoes are sort of an Indian version of home fries and very popular at our house whether or not I'm serving an entire Indian meal. Supporting local growers and their experiments with heirloom vegetables is a great idea, and an even better one if you have the ability to do so, is grow your own. They're easily ordered online from places such as Ronnigers Potato Farms. After all, what better way to do home fries, than homegrown?

Turn Up The Heat With Turnips

Fall has officially come to Sonoma.

With almost all the grapes harvested (Cabs always the last) and the first major storm warning of the season, we've taken down the dining tent tarped our furniture and packed in the firewood.

Just two days ago I was thinking of making Falooda, it was that warm. Today I'm craving turnips and something simmered a long time in a clay pot.

Once the Fall has arrived our Farmers Market goes down to one day a week. Luckily local farms still have their stands and we live right down the road from one of our favorite growers, Oak Hill Farm.
This is the time of year for root vegetables and one of my all time favorites are turnips. As I've said before I'm a total sucker for vegetables, I buy them impulsively because I love the color, the shape, the way they feel in my hand. It's like I want to wear them but then I always think...what am I going to do with this? Of course, vegetables are absolutely versatile. Show me a vegetable and I'll show you a thousand different recipes for it. Turnips are sort of the little black dress of vegetables. They're the not-potatoes, with all the crunch,texture and mouth feel. Without all the diety baggage.
One of my favorite Indian chefs Atul Kochhar has a recipe for turnips prepared in the Punjabi style in his book Indian Essence. Here's my adaptation of it using fresh Sonoma heirloom tomatoes and peas.
I started off by heating
1.) 2 Tbs of vegetable oil in my karhai (or deep skillet)
When the oil was hot I added
2.) 1 tsp of nigella seed
3.) 1 finely minced green serrano chili
4.) 1 tsp of finely minced ginger
When the seeds start to crackle up toss in
5.) 1 tsp of turmeric
6.) 1/4 tsp of kashmiri chili. if you can't find this substitute this with 1/8 tsp of cayenne, 1/8 tsp of paprika.
7.) 1 tsp of ground coriander
and
8.) 2 large peeled turnips diced into one inch pieces.

Stir it all around for about 3 or 4 minutes then add in
9.) 1 chopped tomato . I used a greenish red heirloom.
10.) 1/2 tsp of salt

Stir it up pop a cover on your pan and cook it for about 15 to 20 minutes or until your turnips are cooked through. For the last 5 minutes of cooking toss in 1/2 cup of peas, either fresh or frozen
Vegetables are like 4 year olds. Even though they're quiet in the pot, check on them every now and then just to make sure they're not up to anything, like sticking or burning.
When the turnips have cooked through and the dish is ready to serve sprinkle on 1/4 tsp of garam masala and a handful of chopped fresh cilantro.

I've made this dish a number of times, both with and without tomatoes and peas it's warming and spicy. Turnips are similar to potatoes so almost any combination that one can make with spuds ought to work equally well with a turnip.
So, if you live where it's chilly, or if you don't, remember the turnip. Versatile, spicy, plays well with other vegetables.