Yeah, yeah. I know cabbages are not root vegetables, but i didn’t have a photo of anything in the recipe.
This dish was inspired by Blackie Gray, my distant cousin who during the ‘eighties (the 1880’s) developed a bad habit of riding off on other people’s horses and was finally met by a group of neighbors, escorted into town, and given an opportunity to pay his debt to society – not all tediously during a long jail term but rather that very afternoon from a lamppost in front of the Lone Star.
Blackie had asked for this dish as his last meal, but since they didn’t have none of them sunchokes or celeriac, they just went ahead and hung ‘im on an empty stomach.
We are more fortunate.
Set a pot of salt water simmering. In this order (so everything will end up done at the same time) and aiming at roughly one-inch chunks: Scrape a couple of carrots and chop them in. Cut the sprouts and eyes out of a couple of medium size yukon gold potatoes and chop them in. Trim the dark tips and edges from a similar quantity of sunchokes and chop them in. Cut an inch thick slab of celeriac, trim the brown stuff off, and chop it in. Pour off all the water that’s not necessary to cover all the vegetables about halfway.
Keep simmering until everything is soft and the water is almost all evaporated.
Drain, mash together, and eat with quark or butter, reflecting on the importance of maintaining cordial relations with your neighbors.