Sunchokes

In my good friend's kitchen I was surprised to find a vegetable that I had never come across before: a sunchoke aka Jerusalem artichoke!

I had seen recipes including Jerusalem artichokes maybe once or twice, but always assumed that it was some specific kind of artichoke.  The Sunchoke looks more like a giant hunk of ginger root!

I thought that this one looked like a frog:

Anyways, my friend said that she had seen a recipe and then came across them at the store.  It was also her first time trying them.  She said that the recipe said that you could leave the skin on, but that she would prefer the roots to be peeled, so I used a vegetable peeler to remove the brown outer skin.  We cut the larger ones into smaller pieces.  The inside of the sunchokes, uncooked, smelled like raw potato.  I was curious to learn more about sunchokes so later on I did some research and found out that they are the root of a type of sunflower! They are native to the united states and were eaten by native Americans! Interesting, right?!

We also roasted some small red potatoes.  We just tossed the sunchokes and potatoes with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper and roasted them in the oven for about 25 minutes.

They were delicious!  And they actually tasted a bit like artichokes!

The texture was similar to a potato, but the flavor was more nutty and a little sweet and salty at the same time

We ate them alongside some grilled chicken.