Jicama is a vegetable that a lot of people look at it in the store and they
go, 'what is that ugly thing?' It is not pretty.
But it is delicious! It is actually from Mexico and it's
actually a legume, it's a bean! And it doesn't taste anything like a bean.
So I want to show you how to use this. This is a very, very nutritious plant
and it is very, very versatile in how you can use it and very good price for all the
stuff you can use it for. So let's get started.
I want to come down here and show you how to pick one in the store.
I have the good and the bad. Maybe the ugly too.
But this one is like perfect! See this?
It's real smooth, there's not any dings in it, there's no cracks in it.
This is a young one, this one will be tender all the way through.
Size doesn't really matter except that it becomes more fibrous.
And like this one, this one is pretty good.
It's real smooth, it has one indention. The indentions kind of show that it's kind
of older, that it's been in the ground longer.
And when you turn it over though, it's still very nice and smooth.
Compare that to this one. This one has a couple of the big creases
in it and it's full of mud there. You have to be sure and wash those.
But you know, it's still pretty good. It's got one ding here, that's probably
when they were harvesting it. But it's overall, it's nice.
They are not pretty. And so it's kind of an interesting, you
don't put that out on the table and say "Let's eat."
But here I want to show you how to peel it.
There's a couple of ways to peel it and it depends on how small or large it is.
I want to show you one of the ways when you're picking it, you can also take your
fingernail and just see how thin the skin is.
And I don't know if you can see that, but right underneath the skin, the brown
stuff is the jicama. And you can take a spoon and just,
you know, take off the skin, or if you'd rather, you can peel it with a knife.
The thing is, that most of the taste is underneath the skin of course, that always
seems to be the way. They don't want to make it too easy for us
to get at 'em. But you can also peel it and take off more
of that than I was doing with the spoon. Now, the middle of this one might be
pretty fibrous cause it's older. Let me put it like this so you can see
what I'm doing. But it's really juicy inside and I want to
show you how thin this can be. And it's, this is really wet.
That's a good sign. If it gets dry, if the skin gets dry,
then the meat gets dry, it's not going to taste very good and you'll probably want
to use it cooked. But you could eat this raw and I want
to show you some of the ways cause that's the easiest way to eat it is
when it's raw. So, let's go ahead and finish peeling
this one, cause this is the one I think is the best of the bunch.
We're going to peel it some of it down and I'm gonna show you all the ways you
can use it raw. Oops, there's a.. see this?
That's a spot, you want to take that out. And take it all the way down till you get
to where it's not there anymore. And this is so juicy and once you start
peeling it, the liquid starts coming out of it.
This one is going to taste really good. So, let's cut down, I'm going to show you
a couple of ways to eat this raw. Now when you're eating them raw, it kind
of has the texture of water chestnuts that are in a lot of Asian cooking and the
interesting thing about it is it's like it's just like water chestnuts.
It does not lose it's crispiness as it is cooked.
So you can throw 'em in as water chestnuts like the same thing in
Asian cooking especially stir fry. Stir fry is so good with jicama.
So now, let's pretend like we're going to put this in a salad cause you can just put
it in the salad, mix it up with other things, it is great with fruit or
vegetable salads. So I would just take that and then slice
it thinly, and that's kind of big for a salad, so I would go ahead and dice it up
a little bit. And that way you can use that in
the salad. And let me pick those up and see how small
they are? Just enough to have somebody put it in
their mouth and not be too, too much. I love jicama with dried cranberries and
some greens. Great.
So I'm going to put that there, so that's one of the ways that you could eat it raw.
Now of course the other way, is to make it julienne, which is, you know, just long
strips. And this is so easy to cut and these were
kind of big. In some stores they'll be smaller, just
depends on the store and what their order comes in probably.
So now, I have it into little pieces and you could actually put these on a sheet,
a cookie sheet, and cook 'em like french fries and dry them out.
But we're going to pretend we're going to eat that in a salad, so there's that.
This is also a very good way to cut it for the stir fry, is julienne it's called,
it's just long strips of it. And I think the most fun way to eat it raw
is to make it into, use it like crackers and chips.
So you're going to make 'em about the size of crackers or chips.
So now I've got them this size. See that? They're kind of like crackers
and chips. And now you can bring in your salsa and
people can dip it like crackers and chips. And that is delicious.
It is Mexican origin, so it goes really well with the Mexican flavored foods.
And one of the favorite ways for people to eat it is to sprinkle lime juice on it and
then put some some chili salt on it, you know the hot spicy stuff?
They like that. And it kind of cools it down because
there's so much liquid inside the jicama. So I'm going to put this over here on the
plate with my salsa. Then of course the other thing you can use
it for, is like with cheese! Just make the little crackers.
You could put a little olive on top or, you know, decorate this stuff and put this
down on the plate as hors d'oeuvres. This one's a little big so I'll tear that
in half and put that there. And you could serve it along with your
Mexican salsas. I love them with green chiles.
You know what, it's amazing how the vegetables that grow in a certain area,
taste like the foods and maybe go well with the foods in that area cause that's
where they grow. Now to cook the jicama is very easy.
All the ways that you sliced it or chopped it up, to eat raw in a salad or as
a snack, you can put it into stir fry, now this is just a little bit of butter
and a little bit of oil, doesn't matter which size you put in.
If you're going to use it for stir fry, you need to be sure that you put these in
near the beginning. And you add all kinds of things to it.
Jicama is a very interesting vegetable, not very expensive at all, especially in
the late summer and early fall. I would love for you to try it.
Go to my website for a lot more information.