Unorganized Cooking: Sunchoke Crisps

German Castro, Editor|March 30, 2021

Unorganized+Cooking%3A+Sunchoke+Crisps

Hello and welcome to Unorganized Cooking. Today, we will be cooking potato wannabes, the sunchokes, in the frying pan. These vegetables are also known as Jerusalem Artichokes. These plants are native to North America and not related to artichokes. A benefit these plants have is that they can grow in the cold regions of the nation and based off of what I’m experimenting with, they can be grown in pots indoors as long as you water with a spray bottle to prevent root rot.

Anyways, here are the ingredients:

  • Olive Oil (my favorite fruit juice)
  • Garlic
  • Sunchokes
  • Salt

Cooking Time: 20 mins.

Instructions:

  1. First off, wash your sunchokes. I used just 4-5 (I forgot) even though there’s like 9 in the photo.
  2. Cut the sunchokes into quarter inch slices.
  3. Again, in a strainer, wash the sunchokes. Season them with garlic and salt and lay them on a paper towel to dry for a few minutes unless you want to live like Larry and have oil pop at you.
  4. Once the sunchokes are dry, heat up the frying pan to medium low heat and apply a generous amount of olive oil. Let it sit for around 3-5 minutes and add one sunchoke to test the water (or in this case, oil)
  5. If the oil is ready, depending on the size of the pan, add 5-6 at a time and cook on each side for about 1 minute to 1 minute and half. If you do it longer, you’ll end up with sunspots and not sunchoke crisps, which was what I got.
  6. For each one that is finished, place the crisps on a plate with a paper towel to absorb any excess oil.
  7. Once all are done, you are finished.

I know I could’ve added more to this, but those artichokes were already too much of a hassle and I didn’t want to overcomplicate this. Also, these taste nothing like artichoke and taste a lot like potatoes. I could’ve done this recipe with potatoes considering St. Patrick’s Day, but then I would have to boil those and give an advisory about the root’s nightshade toxins. Also, what does the computer mean that sunchoke is spelled wrong? Basically everybody who had enough time to deep dive into a grocery store calls it that.