kohlslaw

Kohlrabi is back in the veg box. It is a vegetable that takes slightly more effort to prepare - unlike salad, spinach or tomatoes, for example, which can be quickly washed and thrown into something. There are also those extra moments one's brain takes to think of which dish precisely it could be made into... and another minute trying to decide if you actually want to eat that particular dish.

Seeing two huge examples of this vegetable sitting on a bunch of carrots, I made a snap decision to coleslaw them. I was inspired by my Mother who always seems to make the slaw, but quite differently to that you can buy. Firstly, it is always to 'use up a cabbage' from her garden; secondly she enjoys the addition of some very finely shredded onion; thirdly she shreds it all by hand with a knife ,and her chopping is a work of art, honed by decades of cooking for her brood; finally she makes a very thin sauce - a skerrick of mayonnaise with generous amounts of vinegar.

Children never appreciate anything: I used to think it was altogether too wholesome without the loading of mayo. Let me assure you, it lacks nothing and is wonderfully astringent and crunchy.

My curiosity to use kohlrabi instead of cabbage - an obvious replacement, given their close cousinliness - overrode my innate aversion to hand-grating anything other than cheese. Like taking medicine, the best way is to jump straight in without thinking and soon I had reduced my washed, peeled carrots and half a kohlrabi to a bright jungle, to which I added white wine vinegar, mayonnaise and a pinch of salt.

I discovered, and fried, the last, lonely pork loin chop in the fridge to sit next to my kohlslaw* and a few cold, boiled new potatoes from another part of that fruitful, but crammed fridge.

For a collection of unwanted food stuffs, it was remarkably good: henceforth it will be one of those meals I go out of my way to buy ingredients for. Although next time I absolutely must do mashed potato to go with it - heaven!



* I was inordinately proud of this ridiculous term I thought up. Of course, on 'googling' it to check, I was reminded that there is no such thing as an original thought. My hopes hadn't been so dashed since the day I discovered several websites dedicated to gloves found in the street...