Sunchokes, the crunchy, nutty tubers native to North America, are the darling of independent chefs these days.
The root vegetable is popping up in soups and salads, as flavorful purées under heady pieces of meat, roasted as garnishes, and in array of other preparations.
“I love sunchokes,” said Ben Ford, executive chef and owner of Ford’s Filling Station in Culver City, Calif. “They are great to pair up with other root vegetables like fingerling potatoes, carrots or even artichokes. One of my favorite things I like to do with them is to make a soup sweetened with ripe pears.”
Jesse Schenker, chef-owner of Recette in New York City, currently is serving roasted sunchoke soup with pear, smoked bacon and Nantucket Bay scallops.
“Sunchokes are a delightful tuber,” said Phil Deffina, chef of Highpoint in New York City. “They add a sweet nuttiness to any dish, especially when roasted.”
He currently serves a sunchoke soup. He also serves roasted sunchokes with fava beans and licorice essence as accompaniments to seared lamb loin.
Also called a Jerusalem artichoke, the sunchoke is neither from Jerusalem nor an artichoke. It is, in fact, the root of a type of sunflower, and some people speculate that the “Jerusalem” of its name was derived from “girasole,” the Italian word for sunflower, pronounced jee-ra-so-lay, and possibly what Italian immigrants to North America called it.
“Sunchokes are one of my favorite root vegetables,” said Joseph Gillard, executive chef of Napa Valley Grille Westwood in Los Angeles, who has made them into hash and served them with poached eggs and also put them in soups and purées.
However, he likes them best roasted and caramelized. “It really highlights the flavor,” he said.
Ryan Tater, chef of Savoy in New York City, also normally caramelizes them, but at the moment he confits them in duck fat and serves them as part of a deconstructed chowder.
“The slow cooking process doesn’t convert their starch to sugar and they maintain a firm and waxy structure and maintain their nutty sweetness,” he said.
Shanna Pacifico, chef de cuisine at Savoy’s sister restaurant, Back Forty, is currently serving them pickled and also roasting some for her root vegetable salad.
“I like Jerusalem artichokes because they are so versatile,” she said. “They are great to purée in soups, but I like them best caramelized in a hot oven. They just give off such a wonderful nutty flavor.
“They also pack a punch, flavor-wise, when made into chips,” she added.
That’s what Jason McClure, the chef at Sazerac in Seattle, is doing with them at the moment. He shaves them on a mandolin and then fries them.
“It’s like a potato chip, but super sweet,” he said.
The chips are part of a chicken salad with lemon zest and caper aioli.
“They bring everything to the table that potatoes bring, but they have a natural sweetness that is just fantastic,” he said, adding that their approachable flavor is appealing and interesting to customers, who are not likely to use them at home.
“I like to pickle them and serve them with cured meats,” said Paul Fehribach, executive chef and owner of Big Jones in Chicago, noting that pickling them helps retain sunchokes crisp texture and “unique flavor.”
At Miller Union in Atlanta, executive chef Steven Satterfield includes crispy sunchokes and sunchoke purée in an appetizer of pork belly with picked fennel. Sunchokes also garnish his dish of Carolina triggerfish fillet with beet purée and citrus.
Other sunchoke dishes across America:
• Roasted vegetable salad with pickled red beet eggs and a vinaigrette of sunchoke, Champagne vinegar, rice wine vinegar, roasted garlic, shallots and olive oil, at JCT Kitchen & Bar in Atlanta.
• New York state venison with sunchoke, carrot, buttermilk and pickled blueberry at Gilt in New York City.
• Braised beef cheek with garlic jus, buttered sunchokes and roasted carrots at Eveleigh in Los Angeles.
• Creamless purée of sunchokes with caramelized chanterelles and black truffle emulsion at Tocqueville in New York City.
• Pork belly with sunchoke espuma and pommes dauphine at SHO in New York City.
• Chatham cod &and Maine lobster with royal trumpets, runner beans, sunchokes and Meyer lemon at Ninety Acres at Natirar in Peapack-Gladston, N.J.
• Duck breast with roasted sunchoke, celery, rutabaga, dandelion greens, ginger, kumquat and duck-port jus at the Fifth Floor in San Francisco.
• Tuna conserva with roasted sunchokes, arbequina olives, red onion and aioli at The Bristol in Chicago.
• Grilled flatbread of braised lamb over sunchoke purée, crispy shiitakes and Asiago cheese at Eastern Standard in Boston
• Brussels sprouts with applewood-smoked bacon lardons and sunchokes at Oak Steakhouse in Charleston, S.C.
Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected].
