Rutabaga anyone?

Every week we get an organic vegebox delivered to our door.  We do this in an earnest attempt to eat more greens and to pretend to ourselves that we are being good to the planet.  The box invariably contains something grown locally, and in-season.  In reality, what this generally means is that between October and March we get a box full of various root vegetables.  By March we are physically sick of the sight of swedes.

The humble swede, brassica napobrassica is actually a cross between a cabbage and a turnip.  They were grown extensively during the second world war, with such regularity that after the war was finished, and rationing declined, they were much maligned and almost forgotten about - condemned to the animal feed pile.

Just about everyone else in the civilized world call it something other than Swede.  The Americans and Canadians call it rutabaga ( with reference to the old Swedish word Rotabagge meaning root bag).  Interestingly the Swedes actually call the Swede a kålrot, which I think means cabbage root.


Apart from boiling or steaming them, mashing them up with butter and black pepper and salt I struggle to think of ways to cook them.  I looked in my fridge, though, to find a big bag of curly kale, a purply swede and a hunk of pecorino romano.  Here's what I did with them:

Swede, potato and pecorino cakes

•   I peeled and cubed the swede, along with 2 small potatoes and boiled them all until tender.
•   Allow the swede and spuds to cool, then mash.  Season generously.
•   Grate a lump of pecorino - I guess i used around 75-100g.  Add it to the swede mix.
•   Wash and slice up the kale, remove the thick stalk from the centre.  Steam it until it is tender.
•   Squeeze all the water out of the kale.  Then shred it.  Add it to the swede mix.
•   Stir the kale and pecorino into the mix.
•   Form into cakes, then fry in a mixture of olive oil and butter until they have a golden crust on each side.
•   I served them with the perennial English favourite - baked beans.