Jicama

Jicama

What it is

Only the root is food: the vine's pods and seeds hold rotenone, and growers in Central America long used them as an insecticide and a fish poison. The name comes through Spanish from the Nahuatl xicamatl, and the root is so low in starch and so high in inulin that it stays crisp for days after it has been cut.

In the kitchen

Peel it with a knife rather than a peeler: under the brown skin runs a fibrous layer a peeler leaves behind and no cooking softens. Cut, it will not brown, so it is the one raw vegetable you can batonnet an hour ahead — lime, salt, chilli, nothing else.

Goes with

Lime Chili pepper Cilantro / Coriander Orange Mango Peanut

In season alongside

Bettarazuke Cévennes sweet onion Hakurei turnip Napa cabbage Pak choi Roscoff pink onion

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