Arrowhead Root

The following is a transcript of my attempt to buy arrowhead root.
Me: (to a man who clearly worked at the shop) Do you sell arrowhead root?
Man: No
Me: ok, thanks
I go to get back on my bike when I see a bucket about five feet to the right of this man filled to the brim with what looks like arrowhead root.
Me: (pointing to bucket) Isn't that arrowhead?
Man: No
Me: Are you sure?
Man: No
Me: Do you speak English?
Man: No

So again, I look to my magic phone to confirm that this bucket of weird tubers is indeed arrowhead and, upon confirmation, I take a bagful in to purchase.

I'm excited to revisit this particular Chinatown establishment when I have more time and am not too lazy to lock up my bike. The inside of the store seemed to hold many bizarre treasures that I would like to investigate further.

So I bought these things days ago. Thankfully, they keep well as long as they are submerged in water. So every time I opened the fridge, there they were, bobbing around in their big red bowl of fluid, looking like alien babies.

I finally made this dish last night after riding to the proper supermarket for the rest of the ingredients. Buying heavy items like milk is a pain when you ride a bike so I definitely procrastinated.

The dish I made was Arrowhead soup.
I had to substitute two things. I subbed red onions of white because the white onion I bought for the recipe made it's way into a delicious roasted vegetable concoction the night before when I was hungry and wanted tacos. Oops. I was slightly worried this red understudy would turn my soup pink.

I also used regular black pepper instead of white pepper. White pepper is expensive at Nob Hill. When I next get up to Berkeley Bowl I'll be sure to grab some of 10% of the price.



The good thing about this dish is that everything just gets blended up in the end so it doesn't really matter if you cut things perfectly.
The annoying this about this dish is peeling arrowhead, which sucks.
I also followed the recipe's instructions to "quarter, peel and chop" the apple. In that order. This was a stupid mistake because it is waaaay easier to peel a whole apple than one that is already cut up.
But once everything was in the pot it was ok.
Until the pot boiled over. I hate my stove. Hate it.
If anyone out there has a tip for altering a stove so it cooks at a lower temp, please let me know.

(I love how I wrote that like I have more than one reader. One reader who gets a verbal summary of the blogs before I even write them. What a sweet man.)

So it cooks for like 30 minutes and then into the food processor! I love my food processor. I should use it more often.

Then into a bowl it goes, a little dill and eat. Pretty simple.

In the book the author describes arrowhead as a mix of potato, apple and water chestnut. That's exactly what this soup tastes like.
Which is probably why she wins awards for this stuff.