German Rutabaga Stew

[Deleted]

I may have mentioned it on this site, or the brother site.
Jr. took a home ec. class at jr high. Some of the book work was to do a report on food from your heritage. We found this recipe and made it.
It's very good.
www.figbethlehem.com/blogs/category/my-gardeners-table/The-new-butcher-on-the-block#.VnNlBuHSm1u

[bowdonkey]

Interesting history of the rutabaga and Marlene Dietrich.  That recipe sounds killer!

[Deleted]

My Grandparents grew rutabagas and parsnips for soup and creamed vegetables. I never have. We had some this fall at the free produce giveaway but I didn't get any. So many other things, just didn't think I would use them. Never got them again. This last week there were some bags of chips, beets, parsnips and something else, can't remember. Baked and salted, not bad, just different....James

[Skandi]

In the Uk they are really common, used in everything from cornish pasties to scottish haggis, neeps and tatties (they're the neeps) we call them swedes though. in Denmark they are considered cattle fodder, and I personaly totaly agree with the Danes.

If you want to find english language recipes for them search for "swede" though why you would want too.. that is a totaly different question

[paquebot]

Rutabaga are becoming almost a forgotten vegetable in the US. When they do become available in stores, almost 100% chance that they were grown in Canada. We used to plant them right after the early potatoes were harvested and supplied half the township. I will say that they are their own worse enemy when it comes to being out where the public can get them. They are not conducive to canning and need special storing since they dry out quickly. Also take up a lot of garden space. For cooking, a pasty isn't a real pasty without sweet rutabaga in it.

There's also quite a variance in taste among varieties. Eastham or Macomber turnip is a rutabaga with a sharp taste like a turnip. A number of HT members had a chance to grow it as I offered it there. Latest which I grew is Vyshegorodskya which is a scarce Russian variety and also with a turnip taste. I tried some in vegetable soups last year and really enjoyed it. Saved several to plant back for seed and have it available for anyone who wants to try that type.

Haven't looked at a lot of soup recipes with rutabaga but years of growing and cooking them have told me that they do not always get along with tomatoes in the kitchen. Tomatoes somehow change the taste of them and not always for the better. Took some years for me to discover that since we never mixed the two when I was growing up. They were meant for vegetable soup, not tomato stew.

//Adding to the above, wife informs me that her supermarket does carry one brand of diced rutabaga so it's still available to those who still appreciate and know what to do with them.

Martin

[freelove]

I grow rutabagas every year. Sometimes I have a good crop sometimes it is wasted garden space. I love the sweet taste of rutabagas. Try them grated, raw in a slaw. I usually store them in sand like carrots and they do keep well. This year I have left them in the garden so far. When the bad weather comes I will pull them and store them.

[Deleted]

I don't think I could recall a year of going without rutabagas in the winter. This recipe sounds like something we will try as soon as can be done. Thanks for sharing

[paquebot]

In Northern Europe, rutabaga was what the people lived on in the winter before potatoes were introduced. In America, it was mainly the Scandinavians who kept it going but eventually potatoes won out. What's not helping now is that there are no noted chefs promoting it and first-time users have no clue as to how to use them. One may find them on a restaurant menu as mashed and that was the traditional way the same as potatoes. Where people go wrong is when they try to use it as a substitute for potatoes and that does not always work. Note that the recipe that started this thread is for a stew. When one thinks of a stew, one automatically thinks tomatoes. However, no tomatoes in that recipe and for good reason. Just like potatoes, tomatoes also are not European. When rutabaga is used combined with tomatoes, their taste changes and not for the better. For those who still grow them, make a stew using tomatoes as a base. Then make one without tomatoes and decide for yourself.

Martin

[paquebot]

Dec 22, 2015 17:27:51 GMT Tallpines said:

Occasionally at a farm auction, an item comes up that the old timers say was used for grinding 'beggies' for cattle feed.

Have you got any extension to add to that story ?

Although probably designed for grinding mangels, they would also be used for grinding rutabagas. Root crops such as carrots and turnips were also grown for winter feed in the past. With Northern Wisconsin having a lot of Scandinavian influence, it would have been common to grow rutabagas for both food and feed.

Martin

[Deleted]

Wow, Martin knows his way around a garden!!

My Mrs. put a ham shank in the crock pot the night before to save time in the recipe. She does this with split pea and ham also, puts the ham in overnight, in the morning she adds the beans/peas. At 5 p.m. she has a finished meal.

The Rutabaga's were purchased at our small town grocery store. We are in central WI, maybe that's just a item they sell regularly in this part of the country.

[paquebot]

You'll find rutabagas also in the UP.  Not just from the Scandinavian influence but anywhere that real pasties are made.  Those were via Welsh miners.  An aunt was Cornish from SW Wisconsin and made the most wonderful pasties.  Meat and other vegetables might vary but never without rutabaga.

Martin 

[Skandi]

Nothing varies in a cornish pasty.. it's beef, potato and swede and that is the ONLY way I will eat them, I personaly find that they taste totaly vile. They will keep practically forever, it pretty much takes an axe to chop a fresh one.

[paquebot]

Skandi,if always only meat, potatoes, and rutabaga, I'd probably find pasties vile, too. Ours also had to have onions and carrots. Although meat was normally beef, venison or chicken also made for variety. (Even had them with 'coon!) A restaurant in Madison, WI only sells pasties and also have a salmon one plus all veggie. (Search for "Myles Teddywedgers" as that's the owner.)

Secret to a good pasty is the crust. If not right, would indeed need an hatchet on hand to chop off a chunk. I once asked my aunt for a recipe for the dough and she cocked her head and thought for a few moments before saying that she didn't know. She had made them for so many years that she just knew how much of what without any reference. There had to be lard in the mix and nothing else would substitute.

Martin