Karin's Week Forty-Four Recipe: Sunchoke Mushroom Saute

This week one of my neighbors came over to see if I wanted any sunchokes from his garden, as he had too many. I said yes, even though I wasn't really sure what exactly they were. I figured here's an idea for my recipe this week. After looking around online, I read a bit about what a Sunchoke is, and found that it seems rather like a potato in its cooking. It did take a bit to figure out what to do with it, as there are not that many recipes out there for them. This one had ingredients that were easily available and wasn't too fancy in preparation. The recipe came from My Recipes.com.

Sunchoke Mushroom Saute

2 lb assorted mushrooms
0.5 lb sunchokes
2 T olive oil
2 T butter
1 c thinly sliced shallots
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 T chopped fresh rosemary, or 1 tsp dried rosemary
2 tsp chopped fresh oregano, or 3/4 tsp dried oregano
1/4 c dry sherry
salt and pepper

Clean mushrooms and cut into 1-inch pieces. Peel and coarsely chop the sunchokes. In a large pan over high heat, combine mushrooms, sunchokes, olive oil, butter, shallots and garlic.Stir often until mushroom juices evaporate and veggies are brown, about 15 min. Add herbs and sherry; stir until sherry evaporates, about 2 min. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Interesting, but most of the flavor comes from the mushrooms and shallots. I didn't think the sunchokes added much flavor, and they are a pain in the you-know-what to peel. Unless I come across some sunchokes again, I don't think I'd go out of my way to make this again.