First, if you're reading this blog entry and you haven't yet read the entry below requesting your ideas for truffles, please, please, please read the truffle entry and comment on it!  Now back to our regular programming.

While at the farmers market Sunday, a pile of what looked like a funky cross between ginger root and potatoes caught my attention—the sunchokes pictured to the right.  Sunchokes are a tuber more commonly known as Jerusalem artichokes, but they're neither from Jerusalem nor a type of artichoke.  Jerusalem artichoke is a misnomer, with several stories floating around regarding the misnomer's origin.  The sunchoke is a type of sunflower and one of the plausible stories regarding the origins of its "Jerusalem artichoke" name is that the plant became known in Europe by the Italian word for sunflower—girasole—which, over time, was corrupted into the pronunciation "Jerusalem."  The "artichoke" part of its name is presumed to come from the tuber's taste, which is similar to that of an artichoke.

In an effort to avoid further confusion, I'll go with the name "sunchoke."  Sunchokes are native to North America and, apparently, can sometimes be found in the wild.  They've enjoyed a resurgence in recent years as a cultivated plant.  (Actually, I'm not sure if the sunchokes have "enjoyed" their resurgence . . . but I have . . . so I'll claim they're enjoying it too!)  I didn't have any experience cooking sunchokes before last night but, given their visual similarity to a potato, I decided to make a sunchoke gratin.  Here's what I used:

• olive oil
• 1 small shallot thinly sliced
• 1 in. piece of ginger peeled and thinly sliced
• 1 lb. sunchokes thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup grated cheese
• several tat soi leaves
• salt
• pepper
• thyme

I decided to skip the liquid usually used in a gratin (milk or half & half or heavy cream) for two reasons: (1) to keep the dish on the light side and let the sunchoke flavor shine and (2) so I could make the gratin in my little spring form pans without it running all over the plate when the side was removed.

I began by sautéing the shallot and ginger in my cast iron skillet over medium heat until soft, 3 or 4 minutes.  I then assembled two gratins in two spring form pans (I think mine are 4 in. in diameter) by layering the sunchokes, grated cheese, tat soi leaves (thrown in simply because I had some in the fridge that needed to be eaten), sautéed shallot and ginger and the salt and pepper.  I baked them in the oven covered with foil for 40 minutes at 325 degrees, then removed the foil, turned up the heat to 400 degrees and baked them for another 10 minutes to brown them a bit.  I then plated them with a bit of fresh thyme sprinkled over them.  (Although many sunchoke recipes call for peeling them, I opted not to peel them because I didn't want the hassle of peeling such an oddly-shaped tuber.  The skin is edible and, apparently, nutritious too.)

The dish turned out well—a nice alternative to potatoes—and it's hard to go wrong with melted cheese.  I used two types of cheddar I happened to have in the fridge, both of which were from Vermont and one of which was smoked.  Sure enough, sunchokes do taste a bit like artichokes.  They also taste a bit like cardoon, which I encountered for the first time earlier this autumn and blogged about here.  But their texture is similar to a potato and nothing like artichoke or cardoon.  I'll definitely be eating them again.