While doing the Whole 30 back in February this year, I tried to make a root vegetable purée. I roasted the vegetables beforehand to develop flavor, just like I’d do with soups. Sounds like a good idea, right?
Nope. It was awful. Roasting dried the vegetables out, which made them very difficult to purée. I had to thin them out with water because we were out of broth and we couldn’t use dairy on the Whole 30. It was so bad that we threw it out. We genuinely tried to eat it, but couldn’t even finish a single serving each.
It bothered me. I had to try again to see if I could get it right. A few weeks ago I noticed that I had a rutabaga, a celeriac, some sunchokes, and some potatoes on hand, and I knew this was my chance. Time for round two.
I decided to take a different tactic this time: Treat it just like mashed potatoes. I made some on Thanksgiving a few weeks ago, so I had it fresh in my mind. I used the same method.
Step 1: Wash, peel, and boil the vegetables.
I used rutabaga, celeriac, sunchokes, and a few potatoes. I washed them, peeled the rutabaga and celeriac, and then chopped everything into a large dice, roughly 1 square inch each. No need to peel the sunchokes or potatoes. The peels are edible and tasty.
I boiled everything for about 20 minutes, until tender enough to easily pierce with a fork.
Step 2: Roast garlic
One of my favorite flavors with mashed veggies of any kind is roasted garlic. I like to peel 4 medium cloves, toss them in olive oil, and roast for 30 minutes in foil at 400F.
Step 3: Purée!
Drain the boiled vegetables and either mash or purée them with the roasted garlic, a stick of butter, some salt and pepper, and some fresh rosemary from our window pot. I puréed mine in two batches in my food processor.
Ready to serve!
This version was so much better than the failed February attempt. The boiled vegetables retained enough moisture to easily purée and the butter, roasted garlic, and fresh rosemary added a lot of flavor. Amanda and I both ate multiple servings with dinner that night and I ate it as a lunch side dish a few times later in the week. This is now my go-to method for making root vegetable purée.
Cook Like Chuck 