Hello everybody, so here is another root that was sent to me by
Wanderlust nursery. This one is the Dahlia and Dahlia is a
pretty nifty lookin' you get like a big clump full of these little roots and what's cool about this one is
Dahlia if you recognize that name is because Dahlia is a flower, however
Dahlias have an edible root. I'm not sure if all of them do sooo uh check to make sure if you *laughs* if you do plan on doing this
this is something that historically was used by Aztecs and
even today it's popular in Oaxacan cuisine.
In Central America a beverage is made out of the roasted roots that is used kind of like a coffee substitute
I believe it's called Dacopa this uh food chemist
Who's behind cool whip pop rocks and tang?
He tried to mass market a Dacopa beverage in the United States and it failed miserably
You can eat this. I believe the skin on it is not so great though
so what I'm going to do is I'm going to take one of these and
just peel a
hunk of it
The smell of this is really interesting. It's like um
It's it's kind of like potato-like, like very earthy, but it's also very floral
it smells like um like an air freshener
That flavor is really interesting. It's not
really like uh potato which is what I was expecting it to be like
it has um
a floral taste to it similar to how it smells
they taste a bit like violets. They have a nice floral taste to it, they're very
Good as like a mouth freshener. It's a little bit sweet, too
Not like crazy sweet, maybe like a one or two out of ten
but it's got like a touch of sweetness to it a nice texture to it and
That nice little floral flavor. What I would do with this is use it in
Place of like where you would use a radish, you know
if you like
Sometimes people like slicing a radish and putting it on like a tomato salad or like a fruits watermelon salad and stuff like that
Where it gives you like a nice little crunch and a little bit of flavor this has that crunch
But it has a nicer flavor to it. It's got that nice little floral taste
So I think that would be good in that like a fresh application
I wanted to make that beverage however, my attempts to make it did not succeed :{ I took those things I cut them up
I put them on a pan. I roasted them. However, they were not really roasting properly
Some of them got really really dark straight through and turned to charcoal other ones didn't really roast all the way through
I don't know what it is about them. Maybe the moisture content in it, but it's not really working. I'm following a recipe
that said to cook it at this high heat and I think that might be wrong
I think maybe the way to do this is to like do a very slow roast
Of it like put in the oven for like a long period of time at like a low heat
Maybe that's the way to do it. Hell I did it. It's not so instead
I'm going to review the roasted Dalia because I did rescue a few of them that didn't get burned. So this one is uh
as you can see looks really good looks fine. See what this is like
Hmm
It's still juicy
And the flavor on it is good, it tastes like a bit like a roasted potato but also with a delightful
flowery kind of flavor to it and
It is a little bit wet inside
So even though I cooked it for a while enough to cook it through it still retains that juiciness
so
That's a that's pretty good
Eating it raw is fine. I think I would kind of prefer to use it in a fresh application
But to roast it would be like an interesting thing to like maybe like mix it with some other roast vegetables or something
It wasn't really expecting much from it. I was expecting it just to taste like a potato but it is um
Pretty decent it has a unique flavor to it. That potatoes don't have uh I don't think would be good for everything
You would use a potato for but you could try
making things with this thing make
French fries roast them make mashed potatoes out of them stuff like that
But use the Dahlia root instead and it's going to give you like something that's like potatoes but also with his own really unique
Thing. I mean the texture is very different
The flavor is quite different if you were to get that as like a side dish at a restaurant
It'd be like very ~sophisticated~ tasting cuz it's got that lil touch of of like violet flavor in it. So yeah, check it out
I-I don't think it could be an easy one to find at your supermarket I don't think you'll find it
there maybe a farmers' market probably not. I think the probably the best way to do it is to grow it
so if you're interested in growing it, check out the link in the description below to
Wanderlust nursery. Thanks again to Matt and Megan for sending this to me, and I think that's it. So I'll see you next time
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