What is This Vegetable?
Three thousand karma points for the first person to identify this peculiar vegetable that we accidently bought at the local grocer. It smells like broccoli.
Bonus marks for instructions on how to prepare it.
Tags: Malta, recipe, vegetable, weird
Comments: 21 Responses so far
mark May 4th, 2007
12:56 pm
That was exactly my thought too. I’ve never heard of it, but it REALLY looks like kohlrabbi.
Cube to a 3/4 to 1 inch dice.
Braise in a stock pot with a roux or simply stock mounted with butter. About 20 minutes.
Look out for the woody bits, not palatable.
Chris S May 4th, 2007
1:03 pm
My money is on Kohl rabi too. This site has several salad recipes http://www.riverford.co.uk/recipes/recipe.php?recipeid=486&catid=6
Good luck with the Maltese adventure.
Just in case you needed a fourth voice to say “Yes, that certainly looks like kohlrabi”… yes, that certainly looks like kohlrabi.
Well 24601 did win !
Yes, it is Kohlrabi, Cabbage Turnip. Ask Boris for his famous “Kohlrabi Suppe”
gwendolyn May 4th, 2007
5:08 pm
Kohlrabi is really good just raw. Peel and slice into sticks. Yum!
Thomas Brückner May 5th, 2007
12:31 am
Here in Germany, Kohlrabi is often cut in small cubes and then boiled, together with vegetable stock.
This can also be extended to a real “Kohlrabi soup”. I usually add some dumplings made of wheat flour, eggs and water (mix all three together, shape small dumplings, and let them softly fall into the boiling water with the Kohlrabi).
What you have there is a typical maltese Ä¡idra, which is usually translated as turnip.
I know it looks different from the turnips you may have seen before, but that’s exactly how you cook it…any way you would cook turnip. It’s best peeled and boiled in a nice soup.
Oh, and welcome to Malta!
Meryl May 5th, 2007
8:48 am
its a purple kohlrabi and can be eaten raw sliced into thin pieces. also can be roasted like turnip.
nick May 6th, 2007
3:46 am
Yeah, def a kohlrabi. Used to eat them a lot as a kid.
Whatcha got there is one very sick brussel sprout. I recommend you give it lots of bed rest, dose it with some vitamin C and see if it recovers.
It’s the first of many strange things you’re going to come across in your time in Malta and Gozo.. ;) And Toni is right about the gidra.. it normally finds its way into a thick vegetable soup (minestra).
And welcome to Malta..
darren May 7th, 2007
6:07 am
Wow, thanks for all the answers. We shall prepare it shortly and will report back.
Greg May 18th, 2007
8:44 pm
ITS A BANANA!!!!!
Eric October 1st, 2008
1:31 pm
I can’t believe this! I just got this exact same vegetable in our organic basket this week, and had no idea what it was.
So, I googled “what vegetable is this?”,
got your site, and the first thing I see is the exact same vegetable I’m looking for. What are the odds?
I just think that’s pretty cool.
Elizabeth Reply:
January 30th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
a year plus later, i just did the exact same thing for the exact same reason. i think it’s pretty cool too.
lila June 1st, 2009
7:35 am
haha… the last message is exactly what I was going to type ! I googled “What vegetable is this” in google images and this is the first that came up. And also got it in an organic box…
so the odds ? pretty good apparently !
Kohlrabi. “Google image” it. Yours just has mot of the leave off. Try allrecipes.com
[...] After a day of frustration from our mysterious vegetable I decided to google “what is this vegetable†and the first hit was an article by another guy who had accidently bought this vegetable at his veg shop and was querying the internet on what it was! Low and behold my mysterious vegetable. [...]
cheryl June 2nd, 2010
7:12 pm
OK, amazingly, tonight I got my first-ever basket from my share at the local organic farm. And there were these odd, round, purple things in there. Hmmmm…… Too embarassed to call the farm to inquire, I sat down at the computer and searched “what is this vegetable” and, Voila! Great minds do indeed think alike!!!