It’s no crime to love rutabagas. So let me freely admit my passion for Rutabaga Homefries with Chilies, Mint & Maple.
Rutabagas are easy to lust after. So don’t judge me. I made mine a little sweet mixed with a little heat. I call that the star treatment. I took my flavor cues from Mario Batali on this one. But calling them “homefries” was my idea. I like homefries and all the warm comfortable associations they bring to my favorite (yep very favorite) of all root vegetables.
I chose to cook them homefries style– because it’s super easy, besides homefries make me smile. You see, I was making baked chicken. Which is a dish that needs very little embellishment to be perfect. Still I like to serve something with it that’s fresh, but familiar. Homefries are certainly familiar at my house, making homefries using rutabaga is just the kind of fresh take on the familiar I strive for.
So I peeled and diced the rutabaga, then sauteed the cubes with salt and a little maple syrup, cooking them until the flesh was tender and translucent, and the edges golden. Cooked this way rutabaga is as sweet and rich as butternut squash. But somehow a bit piquant as well. I upped that hint of heat with a hefty helping of red pepper flakes.
There was only one flaw in my plan. I couldn’t stop eating these rutabaga homefries straight from the pan. It started innocently enough. You know, “taste for seasoning”. We’ve all done it, take a small spoonful and see if it needs anything. Only this time a spoonful led to scoopful, before I knew it I was standing at the stove bent over the pan– shoveling these homefries into my mouth. I might have eaten the whole pan full too. Fortunately the timer went off on the roast chicken. Three electronic chimes that brought me back to reality just in time. Five more minutes and this side dish would have become the whole meal. GREG
Rutabaga Homefries with Chilies, Mint & Maple serves 8 CLICK here for a printable recipe
- 1/4 c olive oil
- 3 lb rutabaga, peeled & cut into 3/4‑inch dice
- 4 clv garlic, thinly sliced
- 1 t crushed red pepper flakes
- 3 T red wine vinegar
- 3 T maple syrup
- 1 pn kosher salt, to taste
- 3 T fresh mint, chooped
Heat the olive oil in a large saute pan set over medium heat, until very hot and nearly smoking. Add the rutabaga dice, and cook stirring often, until golden brown on all sides, about 10 minutes.
Add the garlic, red pepper flakes, vinegar and maple syrup. Bring to a boil. Cook, stirring occasionally until the liquid is reduced to a syrup, about 1 minute. Season with salt. Remove from heat, toss with mint and serve.
Adapted from Mario Batali
Greg Henry writes the food blog Sippity Sup- Serious Fun Food, and contributes the Friday column on entertaining forThe Back Burner at Key Ingredient. He’s active in the food blogging community, and a popular speaker at IFBC, Food Buzz Festival and Camp Blogaway. He’s led cooking demonstrations in Panama & Costa Rica, and has traveled as far and wide as Norway to promote culinary travel. He’s been featured in Food & Wine Magazine, Los Angeles Times, More Magazine, The Today Show Online and Saveur’s Best of the Web. Greg also co-hosts The Table Set podcast which can be downloaded on iTunes or atHomefries Podcast Network.
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[…] Rutabaga Homefries — Any sort of cubed, lightly fried thing is probably my idea of a perfect breakfast. Potatoes are obviously the standard, but rutabaga is an interesting idea also. (@ Sippity Sup) […]
A must make for my favorite Shirley Temple! Thank you!
When I moved into my first apartment in 1988 my parents and grandparents collected some bottles from their respective cabinets to seed my first liquor collection. It included bottles from my grandparents’ wedding in 1931.
When Michael and I got married in 1996 my parents went through their wine closet and pulled out a few things they thought we would like. One was a Tokaji dessert wine, Hungarian, like my new husband. It was also from the early 1930s and we deduced that it had probably been a wedding present — although we weren’t sure whose wedding, my grandparents’ or my parents.
Evidently my family and Ken’s family have something in common. Not big drinkers. Full of treasures.
My seven year old daughter loves a Shirley Temple as a treat and I will admit to some hesitation on my part because that bright red syrup kind of skeeves me out. Bravo to you for making a gorgeous homemade version, like liquid rubies…yum!
I never knew grenadine was made with pomegranate juice. I love learning new things.
Ken’s parent’s liquor cabinet sounds like my dad’s. He always buys top quality stuff and never uses it. He doesn’t even drink himself but belives one should keep a nicely stocked liquor cabinet. Works for me and my siblings since we imbibe and often raid his cabinet:-) Love the idea of making your own grenadine some of the grenadine sold today is nothing more than food clooouring and sugar water.
Learn somthin’ new every day because I always thought grenadine was made from cherries. Great pic of the old bottle. I’m going to have to make some grenadine now!
…Greg, you always come up with the most amazing concoctions!
My inlaws don’t have grenadine in their cabinets but they do have backyards FILLED with pommegranite trees so the fruits are abundant this time of year. Abundant enough to make juice and a few bottles of grenadine! I’ve only made it once as a little goes a long way around here but you are so right. There is no comparison to that ‘other stuff’ that masquarades as grenadine.
No jive — homemade Grenadine is far superior to store-bought. Some people make a simple Grendine by dissolving superfine sugar into pomegranate juice with no heat involved. Good as that is with its intense and bright pomegranate taste, I am with you on cooking and reducing the juice; the method yields a thick Grenadine with far more depth of flavor.
A word about that first shot — your choice of a red dish, the reflection in the dish, the specular on all the elements (especially the little dab on the stream of syrup) — all are excellent. Pouring conveys action and a dynamic sense to the shot, and you have shown the viewer how far to take the reduction. That is some excellent food photography. Complimenti e bravo!