June 7, 2009

Poor people food...

I was able to cook this weekend with the first fruits of this year's garden (of course, if I don't count radishes, those we are eating for weeks now...). I have planted about 15 kohlrabi plants and if you grew those before, you know it takes a while until the fruit is ready. However, there is plenty of kohlrabi leaves before that.
When I was little, my grandma use to make this meal every time my dad brought kohlrabi from garden or we bought some at the store. I think she developed this recipe in times when food was scarce and people were trying not to trow anything away. What do you do with the left over leaves?

"PODLUBKY"(I quess it was my Grandma who named it, it doesn't really mean anything, we can call it Kohlrabi greens thick soup....)
What would you need? (4 servings)

  • 20 or more kohlrabi leaves
  • approx. 10-15 slices of bacon, if you use thin sliced
  • 2-4 cloves of garlic
  • a little milk and flour
  • salt, pepper, vegetable seasoning
Wash kohlrabi leaves and cut the main stem out.





Roll the leaves up and cut into half inch pieces.



Here you can see my compost bowl/ colander... everything that can, goes to compost around here...



Next dice bacon, and heat to crispy bacon pieces, then add kohlrabi. If you are vegetarian this could be substituted by onion and bit of olive oil.



Once, kohlrabi leaves are a little softer, add water (broth), so everything is covered.
Add garlic, seasonings and cook until soft for 20-30 minutes. Let it boil and then simmer.



While simmering add mixture of flour and milk (about 3 spoons of flour), just to thicken the soup), if you are used to thickening your soups somehow else, go ahead.

We eat this with egg - "sunny side up" on the top and bread, which is optional.
Use your imagination...
Enjoy!


This might not be that gourmet food that you want to make for your guest, but it is very tasty and also healthy. The most important it is super cheap and quick. Most of the people throw those leaves away.
If you never tried kohlrabi before, than all I can say is, "You should give them a try."

7 comments:

Kim said...

The Olive Garden restaurant seems to think that your recipe is fit of guests, lol, they serve a soup much like this - they add a bit of Italian sausage to it. Tom and I make this at home and enjoy it. We add some potato to it.

Michaela said...

Wow, I had no idea. :)
I kept asking people I know if they ever had it, and nobody knew. I have to check out the one at the Olive Garden...Glad to hear you like it too

Danielle said...

I'm hungry now, I wish I could con some from you at work if I were there :)

Rose said...

I almost smell the cooking from your pictures. Okay, I'll confess. I've never heard of kohlrabi - doubt that it is grown in my part of the country. I definitely am going to check it out. Hubbie is the family cook/shopper so I often am uninformed. The recipe is almost exactly how we cook collard greens - yummy!

Trendsetters said...

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we would love you to visit our blog and possibly link our blog in yours. we are happy to do the same in return

thank you

Lenka said...

Michaela super napad musim vyskusat. ja tak robim spenatovu polievku, dynovu ale kalerabovu som este neskusala. Thank you
Lenka

randi said...

I have made kohlrabi hash brown before and those were great. My kids even liked them!