Roasted Rutabaga with Brown Butter Vinaigrette
I feel like eating warm salad today and the rutabagas that are so abundant in the market keep beckoning me to cook them. In the past, I didn’t see rutabaga much in the market or supermarket. But I think it has gained recognition and perhaps popularity lately. Seen as a forgotten vegetable, rutabaga belongs to the Brassica family, so it’s related to cabbage, turnip, etc. The taste is also similar to turnip. Therefore, it’s also often called Swedish turnip. However, I think rutabaga is sweeter than turnip, especially if it’s harvested after a frost.
For the second dish of our Cozy Christmas menu, we are roasting rutabaga with lots of warm spices alongside onion and jalapeños. As the onion will also slowly roast with the root vegetable, it will caramelize and add a nice flavor. Then, we will toss the roasted rutabaga in a nice, tangy, nutty vinaigrette made from brown butter.
You can serve this roasted rutabaga as a side dish to a meat dish. I actually ate it just like that as a main dish. I imagine it’s also good to add some freshly torn lettuce leaves for a nice crunch. Then, it will truly become a warm salad as I imagined in the beginning.
Oh, by the way, I read that some countries use rutabaga as jack-o’-lantern instead of pumpkin for Halloween. How fun!
I hope you enjoy today’s recipe. So far we’ve made two out of five items on our Cozy Christmas menu. Next week, I’ll publish the recipe for our main dish, porc au cidre, so stay tuned!
Roasted rutabaga with brown butter vinaigrette
Serves 4-6
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Level of difficulty: 1/3
Keep for 3 days, refrigerated
Ingredients:
750-800g/ 26-28 oz. rutabaga
3 red onions
1 tbs salt pepper seasoning or a mix of salt and pepper
1 tsp Dash garlic herb seasoning or garlic powder
1 tsp ras el hanout
4 tbs olive oil
2 tbs chopped thyme
2 tbs chopped rosemary
5 jalapeños, sliced
Brown butter vinaigrette:
60g/ 4 tbs butter
3 tbs olive oil
1 tbs honey
1 tbs balsamic vinegar
¼ tsp ground black pepper
¼ tsp salt
1 cloves garlic
1 tsp Dijon mustard
Steps:
Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F. Peel rutabaga and chop it into 2.5 cm-/1-inch cubes. Chop 2 red onions into big chunks.
Add the rutabaga and red onion chunks to a baking tray alongside the salt pepper seasoning, garlic herb seasoning, ras el hanout, olive oil, thyme, and rosemary. Mix to combine.
Pop the tray in the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Toss and add the jalapeños. Roast for a further 20 minutes or until tender.
While the rutabaga is baking in the oven, make the vinaigrette by adding all the ingredients in a bowl. Whisk until everything is combined.
When the rutabaga is cooked, take it out of the oven and mix in the vinaigrette. Toss until everything is coated with the vinaigrette. Serve warm as a side dish or on its own as a main vegetarian dish.