Ok. So I procrastinated about doing this post. But in my defense, I do still have a pesky old job. That and the fact that we went to a special wine tasting at Niko's on Wednesday night and another wine tasting at Beverage Superstore on Thursday night. Priorities, right?
But on Wednesday, before the wine tasting, I played with the malanga coco. If you didn't read the first post, the malanga coco is a relative of a taro root. I Googled it and came up with several suggested ways to cook it.
First up? Boiled.
I read that you should peel it, cut it into cubes and boil it for 20 minutes. Check. Peeling it was easy. The skin is relatively thin. I cut a few chunks off and put them in a saucepan with tap water and put them on the stove on high heat. This is the way I treat potatoes so I thought it was a good place to start. I set the timer for 15 minutes so I could start checking them for "doneness". Doneness? How will I know?
On to second cooking suggestion: baked chips.
Oops. You can see that I turned my back for those crucial few seconds when you put something in the oven. I started with thin slices of the malanga coco, tossed them in extra virgin olive oil, laid them out on a sheet pan and sprinkled with Kosher salt. Hmmm. What temperature? And how long? Ok. When in doubt, guess! I decided on 375 degrees and 10 minutes, thinking I will flip them after 5 minutes, which I did.
Got those two going, let's go for the third and most promising technique... DRUM ROLL, please. FRIED CHIPS! Yay!
Again, I sliced it thin. I put about an inch of peanut oil in a heavy pan at medium heat. Using my super-cool, can't live without it, Thermoworks ThermaPen instant read thermometer, I waited for the oil to come up to 375 degrees. (Oh, and while I'm thinking about it, I know from experience to fry chips at 375. That's why I chose the same temp for the oven as a starting point for baking them.) I dropped the slices in the hot oil in small batches and watched them sizzle and turn golden in just a minute or so. I fished them out with a slotted spoon and dumped them on a paper towel. i purposely did not salt them, out of curiousity based on what I found on Google.
The verdict? Delicious, all three ways. The baked chips were probably my least favorite but I still ate the ones that weren't burnt. They had a sweet potato-y taste with a slight chewiness. The fried chips were delightfully crunchy, shattering when I bit into them. Surprisingly, these chips without salt were more savory than the baked chips with their liberal sprinkle of salt. They were nutty and addictive.
The total suprise to me was the boiled! You saw the picture. Not exactly appetizing. It was a quirky, non-food-like pinkish purple and had some strange stringiness to some of the cubes. l figured out when I checked at the 15 minute mark that, based on the size of my cubes, I didn't need 20 minutes. I retrieved a cube, plopped it on the cutting board to cool off and screwed up my courage. When the steam curling off of it subsided, I took a deep breath and popped it into my mouth, expecting the starchy, gluey taste of taro root. Holy Cow! It was silky and tasted very much like a fresh steamed artichoke heart. I drained the rest of the cubes and wolfed down three more pieces before I realized that I needed to stop and take a photo. I love artichokes, especially the hearts. Given the ease of preparation, if I get a hankering for artichoke heart, I may just head for my newest strange food, malanga coco!
Check back again, and don't be afraid to play with your food!
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