Adventures of an American Chef On The Run in Mexico: Kohlrabi Fries

Yesterday, while watering my garden, I noticed two very large kohlrabis, ready to harvest.  In my article on kohlrabi, I shared with the reader that we had four more left, two for the purposes of breeding, two for eating.  I've been letting the big ones grow in the hopes that they would round out, providing us with more food.  As time went on, they just seemed to grow a bit longer instead of wider, which suggests that they were making the transition to flower.  I decided to harvest these two kohlrabi, leaving two small ones left for the production of seed.

Due to the nearly accidental nature of my first kohlrabi gardening experience, I was left with just enough of the vegetable to try, but not enough to really experiment with it's capabilities as a food.  Yesterday, with two fresh specimens at my disposal, I took to the internet.  I perused recipes for awhile, almost settling on trying kohlrabi fritters, which are really just kohlrabi pancakes.  I came across a recipe for oven baked fries, and decided to just try making classic french fries using kohlrabi. I admit, I was not diligent with my photo taking, so I've deprived you the nice image of the freshly picked kohlrabi, only remembering to take pictures once I was already in the thick of slicing and peeling. 

In my last article on Kohlrabi, I shared how to peel it for the recipe.  Realistically speaking, that's how you'll peel kohlrabi any time you use it. Just remove the leaves and roots first, rinsing any dirt off after.  Using a large knife, peel off the fibrous outer purple layer until only white flesh is exposed.  

It'll look something like the above, able to be cut into whatever shape and size you desire.  I cut mine into sticks for french fries. Due to the firmness of the vegetable, I decided to blanch my kohlrabi fries in water just like I do to regular potato fries, to soften them up.  This is how you end up with a mashed potatoey center with crispy edges.  

So get some salted water boiling, enough to cover the kohlrabi in the pan.  When it's at a rolling boil, add in your fries.  Allow to boil until they are tender enough for a fork to go into them easily.  Drain them from the water and allow as much of the water to drip off as possible.  

Get a pan with some oil hot, between medium and high temperatures depending on the stove.  You want the oil hot enough so that when you add the fries it starts frying immediately.  Any time sit waiting for the oil to heat back up from the temperature of the fries is time wasted, and honestly leads to an inferior fry at the end. This is the number one mistake people make when preparing fries at home, the oil is not hot enough at the start and it gets cooled down too much when you put them in.  The other most common mistake is over crowding the pan or fryer, again the idea is to not drop the temperature too much. It needs to be frying full boar within a minute or two of the fries entering the pan. 

Here they are, finished.  They looked fantastic, but I'll admit it was a weird eating experience for someone not used to kohlrabi fries.  I topped them with salt and pepper and made a hot sauce blend of ketchup for the topping, which was an interesting choice.  John and I both referred to the fries as weird, but they weren't so weird that we stopped eating. They had a radishy tone to the flavor, which made them slightly sweet when fried.  I ate more than him and we had just enough left to share with our neighbor and his wife, who was attempting to do the brakes on our truck for some pesos.  

His wife seemed to enjoy them, although she had never heard of the vegetable they were made from before.  John said they both said something along the lines of crazy gringos.  John mentioned that these fries would be good as a loaded fry dish, one intended to be eaten with a fork with many toppings.  This can be done vegan or not, in any taste theme you can think of and it'd probably still be good.  I agree that they would have been much better with bacon and cheese on them, but that's just me.  

I suggest anyone that has access to kohlrabi try this one.  While it wasn't our favorite way we've tried it, it was good in a way that we knew other people would probably love it.  The main reason we shared with our neighbors was because we thought they'd appreciate the taste combination, slightly radishy fries with spicy tangy sauce to serve them with.  That plate came back empty, which told me that my Mexican vecinos(neighbors) approved. I also gave them some pie, which they approved of even more.