I came across these sunchokes at the Asian Market that looked incredible and were very inexpensive so I picked them up. I don’t eat sunchokes often but they sort of remind me of a potato so I purchased some sort of green garlic, seafood mushrooms and red jalapeños to go with the sunchokes. I read on www.seriouseats.com that Chef Ian Alverez formally from Momofuku Noodle Bar, French Louie and now of Bara in New York likes to use the golf ball sized sunchokes and dry roast them at 300-325 degrees F for 4-5 hours. He says it creates a crispy exterior and an soft molten interior…..HOW INTERESTING! so I thought I’d give this method a try. After doing the recipe I feel the recipe has some stuff left out or has some misprints because it didn’t work out as written. My sunchokes were dried out and overcooked at 3 hours. I am certain that someone like Chef Alverez makes fabulous sunchokes and knows how to prepare them . I DO NOTE I HAVE NO IDEA if it’s my oven or if sunchokes differ on their own. So I picked up some more sunchokes and tried again.  I found that if you cook dry sunchokes slow at 300 degrees F in the oven you just have to check them every 1/2 hour and by two hours they all will be done. I checked mine every half hour and pulled them out when they felt soft. When they were cool enough to handle I cut them  down some and slightly browned the ends. I didn’t have green garlic the second time around so I just used scallions and added a handful of snowpeas.

Ingredients for about 4 servings

1 1/3 lb sunchokes – cleaned and about golf ball sized

5 oz mushrooms – seafood mushrooms preferably with base removed

1 + 1/3rd green garlic – bulb and 2 middle greens- sliced thin and end of the 3rds of green finely chopped (the very end 3rd of the green garlic might be woody so you just use it to boil with other things for flavor) Or a handful of scallions.

2 red jalapeños – chopped fine

2 oz unsalted butter

small handful of snowpeas -de-stringed

2 Tablespoons vegetable or canola oil for frying

fresh ground sea salt to taste

fresh ground black pepper to taste

Directions

Set your oven to 300 degrees F.

Place your cleaned sunchokes on a broiling rack.

Check on the sunchokes every 30 minutes and pull the soft ones out. Mine were all done within two hours.

Get a fry pan on medium-high heat with the butter.

Toss in 2/3rds of the jalapeño. Let it go a minute.

Then toss in the garlic bulbs and 2/3rds of the finely chopped green stir and then toss in the mushrooms. Stir after maybe 30 seconds. You want to brown the mushroom some. It should smell like seafood if you purchased the seafood mushrooms. About now everything is browning so get the pan off the heat and toss in the remaining jalapeño, green garlic and snowpeas. Add fresh crushed sea salt and pepper to taste. If you are using scallions just toss them in at the end.

Cut the sunchokes down a little if you want to and put the mushroom topping to the side and brown up the sunchokes lightly in a fry pan with the oil on medium heat. When done take off the heat and put in a serving dish. Add fresh ground sea salt and pepper to taste.

Add the mushroom topping, fresh ground sea salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Yummy and something different.