Jerusalem artichokes

I'm sure it's my fault but I'm always a little disappointed with Deborah Madison and the other folks from Greens. We have three of the cookbooks from Greens and about all I ever use them for is techniques for grilling vegetables (which are quite good!). I bought Madison's Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America's Farmer's Markets when it came out precisely so I could go to the farmer's market, buy whatever looked good, and come home and find a nice recipe for it.

It hardly ever works out that way. I find generally that, as in the other books, the recipes are just too complicated, requiring too many other ingredients, and designed more to be a vegetarian meal rather than a vegetable dish. That may be great for vegetarians, but, while I don't mind the occasional vegetarian meal, I generally want vegetables as a side to a meat dish.

Anyway, the Sheridan School farmer's market had Jerusalem artichokes, so I bought some and looked for a recipe in Local Flavors. There was one for Jerusalem artichokes, artichokes and lentils that I decided to go ahead with and just leave out the artichokes. It calls for only 1/3 cup black or green lentils, which you cook for 25 min. in 2-1/2 c. water with 1/2 tsp. salt. Drain and reserve the liquid.

If you have artichokes you trim and quarter them, then dice them, and put them in a bowl with lemon juice to keep them from discoloring. You scrub the Jerusalem artichokes (don't need to peel them) and slice them into 1/3-in. slices. You put both vegetables in a skillet with 1-1/2 Tbl. of olive oil and 4 shallots, peeled and sliced into 1/3-in. slices. Sautee all this for 4 to 5 min. and season with 1/2 tsp. salt and some pepper, add 3/4 c. of the reserved lentil broth, cover and simmer for 20 min. Then add the lentils and 2 tsp. chopped tarragon or marjoram and cook for 5 min. Stir in 2 Tbl. butter and sprinkle 1 Tbl. chopped parsley over it. Madison says to serve with a small dried pasta or as a side to roast chicken or duck. We served with gnochetti sardi.

This was tasty enough, though fairly sluggish looking (not great for presentation at a dinner party, for instance). It would have helped if I added some lemon juice even without the artichokes (no doubt the artichokes would have helped, too, but they wouldn't add any color) and had a fresh herb instead of dried tarragon. It was just not compelling enough that I would ever do it again.

Perhaps it is just the fate of Jerusalem artichokes to be part of fairly dull-looking dishes. I found fewer recipes than I thought I would when I actually brought them home (you know how it is, you see nothing but Jerusalem artichoke recipes until you finally have some and then you can't find one to save your life).