Tuberous Woundwort, Stachys affinis (Japanese potato)

The rediscovered tuberous betony ( Stachys affinis ) is a delicate rarity, as its cultivation requires a lot of manual labour and the harvest is small. Common names include Chinese artichoke, Japanese potato or Stachys .

Use in the kitchen:

First, clean the rhizomes (also known colloquially as roots or tubers) of soil and dirt using a root brush under running water. Since Japanese potatoes have a delicate skin, you don't have to peel them. Small root buds and the ends can be carefully cut off.

The nutritious stachys have a delicate taste that is reminiscent of artichoke, salsify and nuts. The tubers can be used to make delicious starters and side dishes. You can cook the tender and juicy vegetables in a broth until al dente as a delicately seasoned dish or blanch them for around 10 minutes. You can also prepare delicious oven-baked vegetables or grate the tubers fresh into a salad. The tubers can be ground dry and used as an additive for various doughs.

Stachys also taste good in a cream sauce, gratinated or with pasta. You can pickle the roots in vinegar as a sweet and sour vegetable. The bulbous chard also goes well with lecho vegetables, a pan-fried vegetable with peppers. Recipes with asparagus and kohlrabi can also be prepared well with stachys.

Recipe for beetroot carpaccio with stachys and roasted almonds:

Peel three medium-sized beetroots, slice them very finely and mix with a tablespoon of rapeseed oil, balsamic vinegar, agave syrup and mustard. Season with salt and pepper. Chop a handful of almonds and roast them without fat. Mix 150 g of carefully cleaned stachys with the nuts and arrange on the beetroot. Garnish with sprouts of your choice. This starter is enough for four people.

Recipe for a simple Stachys pan with spinach or chard:

Cook 400 g of Stachys in a little vegan vegetable stock for about 10 minutes. Drain the Stachys. In a frying pan, gently sauté 400 g of spinach or chard with two tablespoons of heat-stable cooking oil and a finely chopped garlic clove. Season to taste with salt, pepper, nutmeg and a little turmeric. This side dish is designed for four people. Tip: Instead of spinach or chard, you can also use the young shoots and leaves of the stinging nettle or willowherb .

Purchasing - where to buy?

With a little luck, the rare Stachys are available in stores during the season from October to March . During the high season from mid-November to February, it is best to ask in delicatessens, as they may have the nodules in their range during the holidays. Stachys can also be purchased from the foundation for old varieties Pro Specie Rara (prospecierara.ch).

However, Stachys are not very well known in German-speaking countries, which is why demand and supply are low. For this reason, they are rarely available at weekly markets or in retail stores and are unlikely to be available from major retailers such as Coop , Migros , Denner , Volg , Spar , Aldi , Lidl , Rewe , Edeka , Hofer , etc. However, Stachys may be available in health food stores or organic shops, etc., perhaps even in organic quality. The vegetable is also of no interest to major retailers because its thin skin means it dries out quickly.

Fritz Berger from the hamlet of Rachholtern above Lake Thun in Switzerland is one of the few Swiss farmers who cultivates this little-known delicacy. If you really want to try Stachys, the best thing to do is order it directly from a local producer. ^1,2 The price for a kilo of Stachys is around 20 euros.

You can order bulbs for tuberous yarrow via the online shop on Fritz Berger 's website (spezberger.ch). Seeds or potted plants for tuberous yarrow can be purchased online or in well-stocked garden centers. From April, tuberous yarrow can also be purchased as a pre-grown garden plant in garden centers. If you find undamaged tuberous yarrow at a weekly market, you can plant it in a flowerpot.

Found in the wild - Season:

Bulbous betony originally comes from China. In Central Europe it is grown as a garden crop and in small quantities in commercial cultivation.

Bulbous woundwort is a perennial, herbaceous plant and reaches a height of 30 to 120 cm. It can be recognized by its nettle-like leaves, which are arranged opposite each other on the stem. The main flowering period is from July to August. Bulbous woundwort forms rhizomes as perennial organs. These storage roots, known as vegetables, are mother-of-pearl colored and have thin skin. They have constrictions at irregular intervals and become thinner on both sides. The bulbs, which sprout in March, do not tear, unlike marsh woundwort. In marsh woundwort, the scars that form lead to corking. ³

Storage:

Store the tubers unwashed in the vegetable compartment of the refrigerator, preferably at 2 °C and high humidity. The high humidity and the adhering soil prevent the thin-skinned rhizomes from drying out. If stored in a cool place, they stay crisp for about 14 days. Washed Stachys must be eaten within two days. If stored in a warmer place, they may sprout. In addition, the taste and color may become unpleasant.

Ingredients - nutritional value - calories:

According to Wikipedia, the dry mass of the tuber contains about 63.5% stachyose, which is almost 20% of the fresh tuber. In addition to 79.2% water, it contains 2.86% protein, 0.11% fat and 0.71% fiber. ³ In addition, tuberous yarrow contains vitamin C and calcium and is one of the strongly alkaline vegetables. ²

The human small intestine cannot use its own enzymes to break down stachyose, which is why the food passes unchanged into the large intestine. There, intestinal bacteria break down the stachyose, which can lead to flatulence. ⁴

Information on specific ingredients, such as secondary plant substances, can be found here . However, these values refer to the wood woundwort ( Stachys sylvatica ) and the marsh woundwort ( Stachys palustris ).

Woundwort is considered healthy and you can integrate the valuable delicacy rhizome into your seasonal cooking without any concerns. Nevertheless, it would be an exaggeration to call bulbous woundwort a superfood.

Use as a medicinal plant:

The two types of woundwort, wood woundwort and marsh woundwort, are used as medicinal plants and in naturopathic medicine. You can read more about the effects and health aspects in the description of the woundwort plant genus. See the link a little further up.

Occurrence - Origin:

The tuberous yarrow originally comes from the northern and central Chinese provinces of Nei Monggol, Shaanxi, Shanxi and Xinjiang. There it grows on wet to submerged areas on mountain slopes and occurs at all altitudes up to 3,200 meters. Tuberous yarrow is now grown for its edible rhizomes not only in China, Japan, India and New Zealand, but also in South Africa, North and South America and since the end of the 19th century in Europe (France, Switzerland). ³

Cultivation - Harvest:

Basically, demand is greater than production, but the low yield and the laborious harvest prevent an expansion of commercial cultivation.

Growing tuberous yarrow is quite possible in Central Europe, as it can also cope with normal garden soil. It needs well-drained, slightly sandy and moist soil and plenty of space so that other plants do not overgrow it. Tuberous yarrow prefers a spot in the sun or partial shade. It is sown in autumn by seed or by division in spring. ⁵

The rhizomes can be harvested from autumn to winter, as soon as the leaves of the plant are brown. Carefully dig out the plant with a digging fork and collect the tubers lying 5-20 cm below the ground. In the best case scenario, you can harvest up to 20 tubers from one plant. Incidentally, you need about 400 plants to produce one kilo. ² If you leave a few tubers in the ground, new plants can grow next spring. To do this, plant the tubers about 3 cm deep in fresh soil at a distance of 30 cm from each other. Alternatively, you can overwinter a few tubers in a frost-free, dark and cool place and plant them back in the garden in spring as planting tubers. You should change the location every two to three years to avoid disease and soil fatigue.

Animal protection - species protection - animal welfare:

Woundwort species are recommended for the wild plant garden as bee pasture. The flowers of the flowers serve as a preferred target for fur bees and bumblebees. ⁶

General information:

Tuberous woundwort ( Stachys affinis Bunge , syn.: Stachys sieboldii Miq. , Stachys tuberifera Naudin) belongs to the genus Stachys in the mint family (Lamiaceae). There are more than 300 species of woundwort found worldwide. ⁷ Closely related to the tuberous woundwort is the marsh woundwort ( Stachys palustris ), which is native to Central Europe. Like the tuberous woundwort, it forms underground runners with bulbous, thickened tips. ⁵ In addition to the marsh woundwort, the wood woundwort ( Stachys sylvatica ), the woolly woundwort ( Stachys byzantina ) and the upright woundwort ( Stachys recta ) also occur in Central Europe.

Already in pre-Christian times, the marsh woundwort was collected as a vegetable in the wild, until it was replaced by the bulbous woundwort at the end of the 18th century. At the end of the 19th century, the bulbous woundwort was brought to the small French town of Crosne near Paris by a gardener, which is where the name "Crosne du Japon" comes from. From there, the plant spread to local home gardens. ³

The true betony ( Betonica officinalis ) should not be confused with the common betony. It is also known as medicinal betony, fleabane, euonymus, toothwort or edible herb. The true betony also comes from the mint family (Lamiaceae), but belongs to the genus Betonica ( Betonica ). Wikipedia shows that, according to research results from 1989, the genus Betonica is phytochemically very different from the genus Stachys . This further confirms the separation of these two genera. ⁸

Alternative names:

Alternatively, the tuberous yarrow is also called Chinese artichoke, Japanese tuber, Japanese potato, tuberous potato, Crosne du Japon or Stachy. The now outdated scientific name Stachys sieboldii was created in honor of the German-Dutch Japan researcher and botanist Philipp Franz von Siebold . ³

The English name for the common betony is simply Stachys. Alternative names in English are hedgenettle, heal-all, self-heal, woundwort, betony and lamb's ears. The tuberous betony in particular is also known in English as Chinese artichoke.

Literature - Sources: