Kohlrabi Slaw

What’s Kohlrabi?

March 2014

What’s the most underrated, undervalued vegetable? Food writers have spoken about fennel and rutabaga, Swiss chard and turnip.

But the real answer is: kohlrabi. Chances are you’ve passed it by many times and never noticed it. Or, if you did, you might have wondered what that weird looking thing was but didn’t ask. Kohlrabi is so unappreciated that more than a few produce department managers have never even heard of it.

Too bad. This vegetable is special. It’s one of those cabbage family cousins that’s good for you as well as being versatile, easy to cook, and most of all, tasty.

Yes, it looks a bit strange with its bulbous green (sometimes purple) bottom and leafy-topped stalks sticking up like the antennae of a creature from outer space. But bite into that rounded part – yes, you can eat it raw – and you’ll understand kohlrabi a bit better. It crunches like a radish and tastes very much like a broccoli stem, only sweeter, gentler and more refreshing. The purple varieties are even milder than the green ones. The leaves are edible too. They have a grassy flavor, robust but not as dominant as other greens.

Kohlrabi looks like a root vegetable, but the bulb is actually a swollen stem that grows above ground. To get it ready for eating, you’ll have to remove the leaves, discarding their long, thin stalks. Wash the leaves and cook them the way you would prepare kale or spinach.

The bulbous portion needs peeling, first of the thick outer layer, which you can strip off using a paring knife or vegetable peeler. Underneath that there may be a fibrous layer, which you should discard as well. The inner flesh is pale, almost white with a hint of green.

Raw kohlrabi makes a nice addition to a crudite platter because it is so crispy and the mild flavor is a good foil for dips; cut the bulb into “sticks.” Or slice the bulb and add the pieces to a salad or stuff them into tea sandwiches instead of cucumber. Diced kohlrabi can be used for chopped salad; grated kohlrabi is a natural for cole slaw (the kohl and cole derive from the same German word for cabbage).

Keep cooked kohlrabi simple with a quick sauté or stirfry. You can also steam or poach the pieces. In all cases, it only takes a few minutes to tenderness. Serve the vegetable plain, sprinkled with a squeeze of lemon juice. It’s easy to jazz it up though: add garlic, chili pepper or a small amount of chopped fresh herbs to the pan. Or cloak cooked kohlrabi with cheese sauce. Another suggestion: quarter the bulb (without peeling), rub olive oil on the surface, sprinkle with salt and roast the vegetable as you would potatoes.

Pureed kohlrabi is an absolute delight, especially as a base for soup or when mixed with mashed potatoes (making this dish much lighter and less caloric). Kohlrabi strips make delicious fries too, but you must dust them with flour first, to assure that they’ll be crunchy. Forget about oven fries! You must cook the strips in hot oil because kohlrabi is so moist that even with roasting at high temperatures the pieces come out limp, and the surface never gets properly crispy.

The best kohlrabis are the small bulbs, up to 2-1/2 inches in diameter, with moist, fresh, unwithered greens. Larger than that and the bulb portion may be woody. Keep kohlrabi in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator, where it will stay fresh for up to two weeks.