There are these less civilized countries, I guess Berlusconi is from one of them, where it can be impossible to get rutabaga, also called swede and in Finnish lanttu, in Christmas time, if at all. Assuming they have the plant with the latin name Brassica napobrassica, it is mostly turnip, the white, smaller and less tasty variant typically fed to cows. If this is the situation and you want to make rutabaga casserole, lanttulaatikko, what to do? So buy two small sweet potatoes, a carrot and some three Japanese reddish, also called daikon. I bought three, they weighted 770 g before peeling and cutting of endings, after that was done is was 616 g. The carrot was 120 g when peeled, and unpeeled the two sweet potatoes were 560 g. They are cooked in jacket (40 min), so removing jacket leaves somewhat less than 500 g.
I cooked the sweet potatoes in jackets for 40 min and steamed the carrot and reddish cut in slices for some 30 min. Then mash them. Before they are ready, mix 200 g (=1.5 dl) 12% cream and 1 food spoon of wheat flour, add an egg, 1/4 teaspoon of ginger, 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg, 1 spice measure of white pepper, and mix 1 food spoon of brown sugar to one food spoon of water and add from this mixture 1.5 food spoon of molasses, as probably you also cannot buy normal molasses from a shop. Add the mashed reddish, carrot and sweet potato and enough salted water, say 3/4 teaspoon of salt to 1/2 dl of water where the vegetables were steamed. That´s all, then mix. Butter a casserole and pour the stuff there, spread on top two food spoons of breadcrump and some 2 food spoons of butter is small pieces. Bake 45 min in 200 Celsius. The result both looks and rather well tastes like rutabaga casserole.
