Eating “pasta” that’s really a vegetable might make you feel virtuous, but let veggies be veggies — especially if, like me, you prefer eating out to cooking at home. Problem is, this time of year, all the fresh ones come from underground.
“I love root vegetables,” says celebrated chef Marc Forgione, who has the steakhouse American Cut and a namesake American restaurant, both in Tribeca. But most people don’t — a pity, because widely unloved celery root, rutabaga and turnips pack more antioxidants, vitamins, iron and fiber than veggies lucky enough to see the sun.
A spring pea can taste glorious right out of the ground, but it takes effort to make roots rock. New York’s enlightened chefs go to great lengths to make the produce world’s wintry undercard palatable, employing herbs, nuts, butter, animal fat and olive oil to near-magical effect.
Forgione makes rutabaga downright cute in the form of a “taco.” The root is plancha-grilled and thin-sliced into a tiny envelope that’s olive-oil-drizzled and filled with wagyu cap steak. I loved the beef and didn’t mind the rutabaga, which I could almost believe was a corn tortilla. (Hmm, maybe veggie pasta isn’t the worst idea.)
Or take Forgione’s all-roots salad — a brave whirl of celery root, salsify, beets, sunchokes and, yes, rutabaga. The rugged essences are deftly framed by piquant mustard seed vinaigrette and a sweet hint of cranberry.
At Tom Colicchio’s Craft, chef de cuisine Kyle Koenig offers a daikon radish salad as complex as a Bach fugue. Overlapping, subtly contrasting essences of five kinds of green, purple and black radishes announce themselves by turns, through a light mist of lemon juice, olive oil and herbs. Bottarga shavings lend a salty-sea note to parry the earthbound ones.
Craft also offers organically grown, meticulously sourced individual roots as sides — among them, dreamy celery root puree complexioned with thyme and bay leaf. “Dragon” carrots from Vermont enjoy a luxurious chicken-fat roasting before they’re drizzled with crackling almonds, cumin and parsley.
Root veggies lend bass-line gravitas to many cuisines’ brighter main themes around town. At the new La Chine in the Waldorf Astoria, deftly pickled lotus root, turnips, radishes and kabucha squash integrate seamlessly with such Chinese classics as beef tongue and short ribs. The roots, no mere grace notes, comprise a mildly exotic leitfmotif that’s just right for chef Kong Khai Meng’s refined menu and the elegant surroundings.
And at Provençal-inspired Nice Matin, celery root, turnips and carrot taste almost sunny atop a flaky puff-pastry tart spread with creamy goat cheese.
Like everyone, I look forward to fresh local peas and asparagus. Roots will do until then — as long as they’re sexed up with butter and oil. If I’m counting the days ’til spring, I won’t be counting calories.