Got Jicima?

Honestly. I know people say "Eat it raw! It's delicious!" It's not. At least, not to me. It tastes more like a potato from the starch and while I know people who like to eat raw potatoes too, I'm not one of them. I've tried- in salads, dressing it up with various things like chili powder and vinagrette... nothing took, I still couldn't get rid of that starch which put me off in the first place. But wait- it's sorta like a potato, so can't you cook it? Off I went to search out a better way to eat jicima... one the family would actually eat anyway. I found a delicious recipe which I decided to try out and adapt. We do have one in our home who is a little leery of curry in general due to an undoubtedly very nice family who made him dinner once and went a LEETLE overboard on the curry. In his words- "you could taste the curry. That was it." This is, of course, not how curry should be used.
I did make up a quick brine/marinade for the chicken a couple hours before hand to add a little more flavor- it was simply olive oil, rice vinegar, salt and brown sugar. It was AWESOME. I didn't measure anything tho, so I'm not entirely sure I'll ever be able to replicate it. But, at least I can remember it.
The recipe provided a nice baseline to work from, so I got to work stir frying the diced chicken and julienned and peeled jicima in a little butter. Being blessed with a decent garden this year, we had some green onions as well as green garlic to use, so I chopped up some of those to use (for whomever has not tried green garlic, I highly recommend it!) and added it in with some chopped red pepper I had in the freezer for just such occasions. While this was cooking, I boiled some water and made me some couscous, to which I added a little of the greens, a touch of curry, and olive oil to help it not stick so much. Couscous are also awesome, and I think my daughter thought they were scrambled eggs from the color. Either way, she loved them, at all of hers, and got caught later that night climbing beside the stove to shove handfuls of it in her mouth straight from the pot!
Back with the chicken, I added about 3/4 tsp curry powder and expected the salt from the brine/marinade would suffice... esp cause I have a sinus infection right now and can't smell or really taste anything. Once everything was coated and fully cooked, I turned off the stove. Then, figured I should add some peas cause I know peas go well in curry dishes. I dumped about  1/2 c of frozen peas in and trusted to the residual heat of the dish to warm them up. It really turned out pretty well served over the couscous, the hubs did just tell me he still didn't like jicima cooked, but at least he ate it, which is more than he does raw!
I highly recommend this tho, especially if you are like me and just can't stomach the raw jicima. Eliminate the chicken and add some other veggies and you could just as easily make this into a vegetarian dish!