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Today we celebrate the anniversary of the start of the space race, the Soviet cabbage turnip beating the American grapefruit into space.
Stone cold sober, this vegetable does pass for Sputnik, the first artificial satellite sent into the earth’s orbit. The only thing is that Sputnik was 23cm in diameter, this veggie is about a quarter of the size. Sputnik was metallic while the kohlrabi comes either in a light green or purple variety.
According to Wikipedia (BTW I spotted the Sputnik thing before I looked it up) the name comes from the German words kohl (cabbage) and rabi (turnip). There there we have it, the cabbage turnip which is not actually a root vegetable but a brassic (cabbage) and grows half in and half out the soil.
When I looked-up the vegetable in excellent Antonio Carluccio’s Vegetables (there is one used copy available on Amazon for US$95!) he made reference to it being one of those Eastern European vegetables that are usually boiled up, a bit like turnips I suppose.
Now I have no idea if the Soviet engineers who put Sputnik into orbit were kohlrabi nuts. Perhaps, as a vegetable, it summed up their love for both cabbage and turnip. But I believe Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union after Stalin died who is famous for banging the heel of his shoe on the table during negotiations with the US, ridiculed the American effort “the Vanguard satellite” as a grapefruit. Something must have grated.
Unlike Khrushchev, I don’t actually personally hold anything against grapefruit and very often will eat a ruby one for breakfast. But to be quite honest I don’t really want any kind of grapefruit in this particular salad.
This salad is about kohlrabi, usually julienned or put through a Japanese mandolin (which sounds better than my screams on a mandoline) rather than grated. Sometimes a couple of my fingers go into the salad (hence the screaming) with the kohlrabi but usually I prefer to substitute a couple of firm young carrots and some crisp apple.
Now it’s time to toss through some dressing. I keep it simple with a little salt, cider vinegar (wine vinegar will do) and perhaps a macadamia or walnut oil (somehow olive just doesn’t seem right).
Ah, and today I will mix in some homemade mayonnaise.
I’m serving it with a rare griddled tuna steak and leaving the not insignificant task of bringing the cabbage turnip and grapefruit together in perfect harmony for another day.
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Wow Ed, it sounds almost too healthy. I love the lateral thought in that post. I know someone who launched a Kohlrabi into space because he hated them. As for Mandolin’s they can be hard on the ears when ill used, and Mandolines are dangerous weapons when ill used….as are my collection of crazy nameless Vietnamese knives and peelers, purchased from the Hoi An food market.
You ave to admit a mandolin sounds better than my screams on the Mandoline…i’m going to edit this in…
Yum. Never did the unlikely or the unfortunately named cabbage turnip look so cute or sound so tasty!
I’ve never had much luck with mandolins or mandolines.