Mystery Veg.

We get a box of organic fruit and veg delivered to us every week, you don't get to choose what's in the box and this week we got a bizarre hand shaped thing with green sprouty bits. It looked a bit like a leek only round. I'd never seen this vegetable before* and was a bit hesitant as to what to do with it. I had already started to dissect it before I remembered that there was an SF0 task to do with cooking with a new flavour**, and quickly whipped out my camera to document my experiment.



As I cut into it it gave off a strong bitter smell like aniseed. I hate aniseed. This is not a good start, I decide to add it to a curry and hope for the best.

Recipe

One mystery vegetable, chopped



One Aubergine, cubed


One white onion, finely sliced
One clove of garlic, crushed
1 tsp cumin
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp marge


One carrot, chopped
Two potatoes, cubed
One tin of chickpeas
Five oyster mushrooms, roughly shredded


One jar of curry sauce
1/4 tub of greek yoghurt

Fry onions and garlic until golden then toss in the cumin. Add mystery veg, potato, carrots and mushrooms and fry for a few more minutes. Add the chickpeas and curry sauce. Simmer until the potato breaks when poked with a wooden spoon (about 30 minutes) stir in yoghurt and continue to simmer for another 5 minutes. (assuming you have forgotten to cook any rice to go with it, like I did)

Verdict

The aniseedy taste mellowed a lot in the cooking but was definitely there in the final flavour. It went well in the curry which was very nice. If we get one of these things again I will certainly cook with it, though I don't think I'll go out of my way to get one.



*I have since been told it is a fennel.

**Technically its a vegetable not a spice, but I've taken all these pictures so I might as well post it!