Garden To Table Series(Ep:4)- Kohlrabi harvest and 5 spices Kohlrabi stir fry.
Another Veggie from my balcony garden in this season. I am super impressed with the overwhelming amount of veggies that are coming out of my small balcony garden. Purple Kohlrabi is next in the row. It taste’s similar to green Kohlrabi and it is an eye-catcher for its color. When I harvested them a couple of days back, it was a rainy day here in Germany and with rainwater, it was naturally washed and looked glossy and pretty. If you want to watch harvest video, it is at the bottom of this page.
This was my first Kohlrabi harvest and a few more to go in the coming days. I do have some green Kohlrabi which will be ready only after few weeks. This is good because I do not want to harvest all at once in one single day:-) It is also better to plan the planting time of the same varieties of veggies wisely. Make sure that you leave sufficient amount of gap between planting the same types. This will allow you to give harvest not all at the same time. So you can enjoy the veggies immediately after harvest.
Harvested fresh Kohlrabi was so crunchy and sweet and it was tough to choose a recipe for this harvest. Starting with salad, curry, soup, roasting, steaming, frying, snacks, etc.. I thought I will try different recipes for each of the harvests. For the first harvest, I have chosen a simple stir fry.
In this simple stir fry, I used whole spices called Panchporan spice mix. This 5 spice mix which is unique to the regional cuisine of Bengal in East India. Panchporan contains ( cumin, aniseed, mustard, fenugreek seed, and Nigella seeds). In addition, the use of Mustard oil is a must for Bengali cuisine.
Adding turmeric and Chilli along with mustard oil and Panchporan the dish is ready in just 10 minutes.
Ingredients:
- Kohlrabi – 1/2 kilo
- Panchporan – 2 tsp ( mix of cumin, aniseed, mustard, fenugreek seed and Nigella seeds)
- Mustard oil – 1 tablespoon
- Turmeric – 1/4 of spoon
- green chilli – 2 (slit)
- salt for taste
Method:
- Wash the veggie and peel the skin off.
- Cut them in to small cubes.
- Heat a pan and add oil. When the oil is hot add whole spice mix and wait until it released aroma for few seconds.
- Add green chilli and tumeric and mix.
- Add cut vegetable and salt. Cover it and cook for 10 min in medium flame.
- Do not need to add water, the steam created from covering lid is enough to cook this vegetable.
Serve as an side dish and enjoy:-)
Needless to say, they were simple and yet flavourful fresh veggies that just tasted the way it has to be.
Not to forget, as an additional bonus, the plants also have quite an amount of fresh greens. I used them in one of our soup evenings:-)
Do try growing your own food and enjoy the fresh harvest and cooking!