"Salsify, what's salsify?" I hear you saying. Well it's easy to grow and tastes very different than other vegetables. Learn more about this unusual vegetable in this post.
This spring, I decided to grow a root vegetable called Salsify. Two things caught my attention...
- One, It can be left in the ground during the winter and dug up as needed, making it a good item for my Winter garden.
- Two, it was reported to taste like oysters. Yes, you read correctly, oysters! Since my wife, Sharon, and I both love Oysters, I knew we had to try this vegetable.
This weekend I dug up two large Salsify roots and prepared them by sauteing them in butter. Wow! I can see why this plant takes it's nickname, oyster plant, from those glorious bivalves that are served on the half-shell in fancy seafood restaurants. They really do taste like Oysters. But, don't worry if you don't normally like oysters, you might still like salsify because the taste is very mild.
Growing Salsify:
Salsify is a member of the sunflower family and takes 120-150 days to mature. Just plant seeds 1/2 inch deep and 2 inches apart. Salsify will germinate in 1-3 weeks depending on the temperature. As it grows, it looks like a kind of grass. You can plant salsify in the spring and harvest in the Fall/Winter as I did, or you can plant in the Fall and harvest in the Spring.
I grew a variety of salsify called Mammoth Sandwich Island. You can purchase seeds from Victory Seeds, Baker Creek and other sources.
Cooking:
To prep the vegetable for cooking, just peel the outer skin and drop into water that has been acidulated with lemon juice (This keeps the root form turning brown). Like other root vegetables, Salsify can be oven roasted, used in stews or sauteed.
We choose to make our first meal of salsify by slicing the salsify as thin as possible with a knife and then sauteing in butter over a medium heat. It took about 10 minutes to cook the salsify when prepared this way and we did nothing more than add salt and pepper.
Sharon and I both were enthusiastic about our first experience with Salsify and plan to prepare it in other ways this Winter. And we do plan to grow it again next year!
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