Serves 4 to 6
This recipe yields a nice amount of mayonnaise to use in another dish, perhaps potato salad, coleslaw, or fish or chicken salad. I’ve been adding yogurt to mayonnaise for years, both to lighten it and to add another flavor dimension. Use any kind of yogurt you like; nonfat is usually more tart than regular or low-fat. Unless the kohlrabis are quite young and just out of the ground, you’ll need to peel off about 1/8 inch of the tough skin to expose the tender flesh. An inexpensive Japanese slicer, similar to a French mandoline, is wonderful for making quick julienne strips, especially of firm vegetables such as carrots and kohlrabi.
- 1 egg yolk
- ¾ cup olive oil
- 1/3 cup plain yogurt
- 2 tablespoons chopped tarragon
- Salt
- Freshly ground pepper
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice, or to taste
- 6 to 8 small kohlrabis, about 2 pounds
- Place the egg yolk in a small bowl or soup plate and add the oil, a drop at a time, while beating the mixture with a fork or whisk.
- When it begins to thicken, add the remainder of the oil in a very fine stream while beating the mixture. Stir in the yogurt and tarragon and season with the salt, pepper and lemon juice.
- To make the mayonnaise in a food processor or blender, follow the same steps as above but remove the mayonnaise to a bowl before adding the yogurt, tarragon, and seasonings.
- Peel the kohlrabis, cut them in 1/8-inch matchsticks 2 inches long, and toss them with about a cup of the mayonnaise. Let the flavors blend for at least half an hour before serving. Serve at cool room temperature.
Carolyn Dille is replanting much of her herb garden for the sheer dirt-under-the-fingernails pleasure of it. Culinary and medicinal herbs have been her special interest for many years. Her latest books are The Onion Book, with Susan Belsinger (Interweave Press, 1996), and Seasons of the Vineyard, with Robert and Margrit Mondavi (Simon and Schuster, 1996).
Click here for more recipes with tarragon from the original article, A Taste for Tarragon.
