In today’s installment of Gwyneth Cooks — because she does, you know — we examine her latest cuisine hijinks via her “lifestyle newsletter,” GOOP.
Gwynnie’s been eviscerated by her critics for GOOP’s highfalutin I’m-an-actress-who-travels-the-world-and-so-can-you attitude, but for the most part, what she’s up to with it (good recipes, holistic lifestyle tips, ideas for everything in between, etc.) is pretty cool.
This week’s newsletter features three recipes and the one that I’m most excited about showcases one of my favorite weird foods, which is sort of like what you might think people ate before there was actual food: burdock root.
It’s a root. And not an elegant one like parsnips or turnips. This thing looks like a big, brown stick that you might use for kindling for a fire! Yum, right!?
But it is yum because it comes, oddly, from the same family as artichokes, and once you scrub away it’s stringy coarse outsides, lies the whiter spongier part which you can then slice up (or rather, whittle, like Gramps used to do on the front porch …) the burdock into little matchsticks.
It’s a great blood purifier and frankly, we could all use some purifying of our blood, hello happy hours, all-nighters, drive-through drivers … you get the point.
So, thanks to Gwyneth and her GOOP for looking out for the rest of us with these tasty recipes.
Recipe follows, and read the full newsletter here.
Burdock & Carrot Kinpira
Kinpira refers to a Japanese cooking style of braising vegetables, typically root vegetables, and often a combination of carrot and burdock. Burdock is a tenacious root that’s especially good for your liver and blood. It’s often available in farmers’ markets in the fall. If you can’t find burdock, any combination of hearty vegetables will work-try carrots, parsnips and onions, or even carrots and beets.
SERVES: 4
TIME: 20 minutes
- 2 tablespoons of avocado, unrefined sesame or vegetable oil, plus more if necessary
- 1 burdock root, peeled and cut into thin matchsticks (thinly slice on the bias, line up the pieces like soldiers and cut crosswise), kept in a bowl of cold water if you’re not cooking it immediately
- 2 large carrots, peeled and cut into thin matchsticks as per the burdock
- about 2/3 cup prepared dashi or water
- 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 1/2 tablespoons mirin
- 1 tablespoon agave nectar (or sugar)
- one 1″ knob of ginger, peeled and grated
- 1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds
Heat the oil in a large frying pan over high heat. Drain the burdock and add it to the pan. Cook, stirring constantly, for 5 minutes. Adjust the heat so that it’s high enough for the burdock to sizzle, but not so high that it scorches. Add a bit of oil, if necessary, to keep the burdock from sticking. After 5 minutes of stir-frying, add the carrot and enough dashi or water to come half way up the vegetables (about 2/3 cup, depending on the size of your pan). Bring the mixture to a boil, stir in the soy, mirin and agave, cover with a drop lid (a lid that’s slightly smaller than the pan so that it sits directly on top of the vegetables), and turn the heat to low and cook for 15 minutes. Remove the lid, turn the heat to high and cook until the vegetables are glazed, about 2 minutes. Put the kinpira on a plate and squeeze over the grated ginger-essentially you are ‘seasoning’ the kinpira with the ginger juice. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds and serve warm or at room temperature.
Photo courtesy Klaus Post@sxc.hu