I have a love-hate relationship with sunchokes: I love their taste and crunch, but hate the explosive gas I get from them if I eat too many. Yeah, never heard of that? It’s pretty awesome, especially at dinner parties…
There are ways to minimize or even eliminate the Great Fartichoke Problem.
First and foremost is to dig up your jerusalem artichokes after several frosts — after a mid-winter thaw is perfect — as the indigestible (read farty) starch inulin within the tuber slowly converts to fructose, a sugar we all know, love… and can digest.
But jerusalem artichokes start hitting the farmer’s markets in November. That early in the season, the other way to keep the wind down is to make pickled sunchokes. You don’t end up eating huge amounts of sunchokes this way, although I have with no ill effects.
This sunchoke recipe itself is a nod to the Moroccan style of pickles, which is strongly spiced and often sweet. It will also work with cucumbers, carrots, parsnips and parsley root, if you happen to be growing parsley root.
Pickled sunchokes are a great addition to a larger pickle plate, or an array of cured meats, and they are nice to just munch on when you are drinking beer and watching football. Or whatever.
And it’s a good side dish to go with Middle Eastern stews and couscous. Try it alongside my recipe for Venison Stew Tunisian.
Pickled Sunchokes
Ingredients
- 2 to 3 pounds sunchokes (choose small ones if possible)
- Juice of 2 to3 lemons
- 4 cups water
- 1/4 cup kosher or pickling salt
- 2 tablespoons turmeric, or 1 large fresh turmeric root, sliced
- 4 cups cider vinegar
- 1 cup white wine vinegar
- 1 cup water
- 1 to 2 cups sugar (depending on how sweet you want them)
- 2 tablespoons mustard seed
- 1 teaspoon dry mustard
- 1 tablespoon chile flakes or 1 dried chile per quart
- 1 clove per quart
- 1 bay leaf per quart
Instructions
- Cut jerusalem artichokes into 1/2 inch pieces and put any cut pieces into a bowl of water with the lemon juice in it -- they will discolor otherwise. When you have them all cut, mix the 4 cups water, 1 tablespoon of the turmeric (or the sliced fresh turmeric root) and the 1/4 cup salt. This is your brine. Brine the sunchokes overnight, about 8 to 12 hours.
- To make the pickling liquid, mix the vinegar, sugar, 1 cup water, the rest of the turmeric (if you are not using fresh turmeric root), mustard seed, dry mustard, chiles, cloves and bay leaves (basically everything else) and bring to a boil. Stir well and let it cool to room temperature.
- Get your hot water bath ready if you plan to can these. Skip this if you plan on keeping the pickles in the fridge.
- Fish out a chile, clove and bay leaf from the pickling liquid and put one in each jar.
- Rinse the sunchokes well, then pack into jars. Cover with the cooled vinegar mixture. Make sure to leave at least 1/4 inch of headspace if you are canning. Process in a hot water bath for 10 to 15 minutes. Wait at least a week before eating.
I filled a 5 gal bucket with Jerusalem artichokes and spent 6 hours scrubbing and cutting them. My grandmothers both raised them in the garden and had them take over areas. I have them in a raised/contained beds. Went to a local restaurant and got two one-gallon glass jars and repurposed the emptied pickle and relish jars they set aside for me. Washed them and sanitized them for use. Filled both cut up jerusalem artichokes and with this brine:
• 2 gallons Jerusalem artichokes
• Apple Cider Vinegar to cover
• 2 cups canning salt
• 4 tablespoons turmeric
Allowed them to sit for 36 hours… It called for 24, but I had to finish Christmas shopping so they waited until the next AM. I tasted one when draining them and it tasted fine…
Went with the above pickling solution and have put in a cool place to sit and ferment for the next 30 days like my grandmother did. She did not “can” or do a hot water bath. Will see how they turn out at the end of January.
Hi! Question: do you only use the fresh turmeric in the brine and not include it in the jars when processing? We grow both sunchokes and turmeric, so I want to be sure I use these correctly by your recipe. Thanks!
Jeff: You can put it into the pickle if you want.
can you skip the overnight brining process with the JA’s and jump straight into pickling them?
Lauren: I wouldn’t because the brining makes them crunchier.
Just made these and refrigerated. 3 lbs came out to 5 pint jars for me. Can’t wait to try them over the next few months!
Um den Blähungen bei den Tobianbur zu entgehen gebt bei der Zubereitung einfach etwas Natron dazu.Schon sind die Winde Verganganheit.
I did these last year like this and they were great. Ten months later they are getting a little soft so this year I added 1/8 t. alum per pint and did a low temp. proccessing at 185F for 30 minutes. I was told this would keep them crisp longer so I will let you know next year. Cheers.
Can you use the brine more than one time? Marie
Marie: I never do.
Do you peel the skin off or is it okay to leave it on?
Robin: I leave it on.
The only other thing I’ve ever eaten that has given me flatulence as badly as sunchokes is chestnuts. Absolutely painful abdominal distension with those things (the chestnuts), when eaten in large enough quantity which I did as I was subsisting on them for a few weeks. I found something else to eat. I was then able to get a night’s sleep again. I’ll try to pass on your info about when to harvest sunchokes to people who I know grow them.
I used about 7 pounds of chokes and only yeilded about 3.5 qts. with this receipe? They do taste good!!
My uncle grows these in his garden. My aunt pickles them. I eat my weight in them!
Love your Rx, Hank, esp the addition of fresh turmeric root and mustard. I will have to make a batch and give it a taste.
Have you tried lacto-fermenting sunchokes?
I also have some experience in pickling sunchokes as my great aunt made them many years. One thing that you can add to your recipe that will make them absolutely crisp even in large size is to eliminate the salt brine and replace it with pickling lime soak in frige overnight at about 5 to 7 TBS per 5 to 8 lbs or so then proceed with your recipe. I usually do the lime treat. Bring my sweet/spicy brine to boil add my 4X cold rinsed artichokes to brine, bring back to boil for 10 minutes, pack out while simmering brine and then cover with brine and seal. Keeps years and are super crunchy.
I first ate Jerusalem Artichokes that were pickled as a kid. My father used to pickle them every year. He has passed away many years ago and so went his recipe. I will try your recipe and hope I like them as much as his.
I live in Mississippi and anxious to try growing this wonderful veggie ! I was tickled to find them in “The Fresh Market ” . Hopefully they will root from one of the plants I bought . Thx. for the info . Actually I know nothing much about cooking this plant much less canning it so this should be an interesting education for me .
Great idea, like the idea of having this alongside Moroccan tagines. Especially as they grow so easily in the garden and are one of the few veggies I still have plenty of. Will try to forget about their ‘fartichoke’ reputation.
Whoa, armed with this knowledge I may go out to the yard and dig some up.
I can’t wait to try this recipe! We bartered goat cheese for 30# of sunchokes this spring and planted every single root. Thanks for the tip about digging them, too. I should get to that task very soon. We’ve had plenty of freezes, but the ground is not solid, yet. Greetings from Vt.
Thanks for this information. I love Jerusalem Artichokes going down. Don’t love them so much once they’re down there.
I’m going to forward a link to this post to my CSA. Hopefully your tip about when to dig them would be helpful.
I haven’t eaten any yet, thus only four stars. I had ?4 pounds of artichokes (and mine stay in the ground all winter…), so I decided to to double the recipe. Cider vinegar costs an arm and a leg, so I added some plain vinegar, (7%) too, thinning it with 3/4 cup vingar & 1/4 cup water, to make it tastte about as strong as the cider stuff (@ 5%). I never thought of “plain” vinegars to have a taste, but they do, and I learned the differnce between cider vinegar, plain 7% and white wine vinegar today.
As for the “chiles”, I live in Norway, and I don’t use chilis very much (although you get all sorts of exotics at the Kurdish/Turkish vegetable stores), so I used about 1/4 teaspoon of hot chili powder instead in the pickle juice. For “Kosher salt”, I used Maldon Sea Salt. Of course, scoring tumeric & mustard powder (and seeds…) is something you do there. They have everything but the kitchen sink…
In the end, I wound up wtih 5 ?1 pint (half-litre) jars of -chokes (ex. Dolmio pasta sauce jars I’ve gotten from a friend). And ?2 pints/1 litre extra pickle juice (which I saved…). The sugar & vinegar balanced neatly out, and the chili gave it just about a little sting.
Canned them for ±15’ in boiling water.
Dying to see how they turn out in a week! But they do look good!
The recipe was actually doable, even for an amateur as me.
I’ll let you know how they turn out! 🙂