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Writer's pictureWendy Zhou

Kohlrabi - Okapi/Kara-rapi

Breaking News - Our delivery is gonna have 12hrs delay in central Auckland this week due to extra rescue pick up scheduled. We have over 100s kohlrabis coming in this week, exciting.


You've probably spotted knobby green kohlrabi in the mystery rescued veggies box, and wondered what the heck this odd-shaped thing with the weird name is! Well, it's a fantastically versatile vegetable with a taste and texture somewhere between cabbage and broccoli stems. It is a biennial vegetable, a low, stout cultivar of wild cabbage.


Given its resemblance to other members of the brassica family, it probably won’t surprise you to learn kohlrabi translates in German to ‘cabbage-turnip’.

Its flesh is always pale green and crisp like an apple but it tastes more like a cabbage, although sweeter and milder. And it also grows large edible leaves.

It confuses many as it looks like it should be a root vegetable, however it hovers just above the ground. Thanks to the way it grows and the fact it has multiple arms (leaf stems) protruding from it, it’s often referred to as an alien vegetable.


The plant is easy to grow, is remarkably productive and an ideal garden vegetable if one does not make the mistake of planting too much of it.


The retail vegetable grade only accept fresh green looking from outside, if there's any dried up, dead looking yellow stems then will become 'none gradable' which will never reach to supermarket shelf, straight to landfills or compost. That's very stupid as judge vegetables are good to eat or not by just looking outside, as you could see once cut in half and they're pretty crispy and fresh inside. All we need to do is peel off the dried stems, give it good brush and I'd just leave the skin on to roasted or make veggie chips.



There are only 47 calories in 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of kohlrabi.

Kohlrabi is a good source of vitamin A, vitamin C and vitamin K, as well as B-vitamins. It also contains copper, manganese, iron, potassium, dietary fiber and calcium, and is rich in antioxidant compounds like phytochemicals and carotenes as well.


From noodles to salads and slaws to fritters to stir-fries, and more there's no shortage of ways to put this vegetable to work. We think that it's time for kohlrabi to step up and take a more prominent place in our cooking and here are some culture-diversity kohlrabi dishes that we like.


Kohlrabi Curry

Kohlrabi Fries
  1. Cut kohlrabi bulbs into spears or strips.

  2. Toss spears in olive oil along with salt and seasonings of your choice–garlic powder, dried thyme or cayenne.

  3. Place spears on a baking sheet or roasting pan and roast at 425 degrees F for 30 minutes.


Kohlrabi in white sauce


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