Six Recipes for Parsnips!

Star vegetable of the week is creamy sweet parsnips, the pale and interesting cousin of the carrot family with a delicate nutty flavour and a lovely smell as they cook. Though Spring is definitely on the way, the market is not yet bursting with new season produce, and it's the brilliance of the last of the winter veg that will see us happily through the 'hungry gap'. I could happily eat asparagus and baby broad beans on a daily basis after the long winter of hearty dishes but so early in the season it would quickly send me broke. Time to look to the stalwarts for just a little bit more.

Parsnips have been around since at least the time of the Romans, a ubiquitous staple long before potatoes and still a firm favourite tucked in alongside a Sunday roast. The name was borrowed into Middle English from the French word pasnaie, which was derived from the Latin pastinaca and pastinaca  goes back to pastinum, which means a small gardening tool for making holes in the ground for planting (possibly parsnips!).

There is a fabulous, if slightly gnomic saying - fine words will butter no parsnips. Obviously - but um, really? Before potatoes were one of the two veg to go with meat there were lots of root vegetables, often mashed and always improved if they were 'buttered up' with lashings of the the golden stuff - flattery, innit! But fine words count for nothing if there's no action to back them up and, speaking as someone who enjoys a little toast to go with her butter, mash without butter is just plain wrong. This source offers an interesting snippet - the English were known for their habit of layering on butter to all manner of foods, much to the disgust of the Japanese who referred to Europeans in general and the English in particular as 'butter-stinkers'. A new term of abuse...

The incredible versatility of the parsnip is a bonus as Spring tentatively replaces the winter. These winter roots are a very unfussy vegetable to use, requiring neither precision timing nor complex prep. Late in the season, as we are now, they are usually fairly big with a woody core that can be cut away if it is too substantial as the rest of the flesh is tender.

When the day dawns gloriously sunny simply peel and grate and eat them raw or try this delightful Lebanese salad with dates and yoghurt. For cooler nights try the more substantial Curried Parsnip and Lentil Salad - parsnips seriously love spice.

  

Parsnips are a thing of joy when steamed and pureed with cream,  or gussied up a little with spring onion and cooked as individual ramekins and a surprisingly delicate ingredient in cakes - a brilliant way to your five a day.

One last idea, from the brilliant Heston Blumenthal, parsnip cereal with parsnip milk. I was lucky to go to dinner at the Fat Duck a few years ago and one of the many magical things we ate was this cereal.

So ppppick up a parsnip today!

A version of this post first appeared in the Local Greens newsletter

My weekly veg bag

Have been getting a veg bag each week for a couple of months now and have settled well into using it as the starting point  for the week. This week I got a lovely shiny black aubergine, some courgettes, broad  beans - the man loves broad beans, a mix of little tomatoes, a big bag of chard and a bag of really tasty mixed salad leaves. The weather continues to be balmy - I am loving that - and we have cleaned up our baby Weber to make bbq treats.

Tonight, Thursday, we are out. Going to the Cinema Museum to see Charlie Ward then on for dinner at Pizarro.

I have some really special smoked salmon in the fridge so Friday night treat will be that with a big green salad, some sourdough bread on the side and grapes and cheese after. Simple but brilliant and next to no cleaning up. Actually it was forecast to rain Saturday so we decided to bbq Friday night instead - made up the lamb skewers and some gorgeous salads, plenty of mess and plenty of pleasure.

Saturday I think lamb skewers on the barbie to go with aubergine and walnuts, courgette and broad beans with basil oil and a roasted sweet potato salad with pumpkin seeds - all easy to prep in advance and plenty to have leftovers Sunday night. So then of course it didn't rain Saturday - and we had plenty of salads leftover and sausages in the freezer - had to be bbq again!

We had a delightful walk up the river Sunday morning after underestimating just how busy the boats to Greenwich would be with tourists and finished up near Blackfriars and this incredibly brilliant recreation of a dazzle ship.

The smoked salmon on toast with salad and a fried egg was a thoroughly brilliant Sunday supper after a fine lunch with lots of garlic and chillies and dumplings and noodles at the Baozoi Inn.

Monday I'd like chilli salt crusted tofu with wilted greens We're starting on the 5:2 diet this week as we're both getting fat and need to do something about it. Breakfast will be vegetable juice and black coffee and lunch will be a mug of miso soup. The second day will be Thursday. Made kuku instead to use up the dill and the spinach with the last of the sweet potatoes and some cucumber.

I made a passionfruit buttermilk cake that I have been hankering after for a while but had been unable to get passionfruit. Was as gorgeous as I'd hoped.





Tuesday I'm thinking roasted red onion and green beans - have onions in the fruit bowl and beans growing in the garden - to go with barbecued sausages and potato salad - proper old school summer dinner! Was the broccoli soup with some homemade soda bread after crackers with rillette.

Wednesday I am out to lunch with friends so the simplest kind of dinner is to defrost a tub a broccoli, ginger and white bean soup from the freezer and serve with some nice bread with cheese and olives before, perhaps. The man had a whinge on, wanting steak on the barbecue so rump it is with the red onion salad and a green salad from the garden with cucumber and radish leaves - for some reason I fail miserably growing radish but the tops thrive...

The man was, of course, right!

Kuku -ye Sabzi

Kuku -ye Sabzi is a Persian dish I've been making on and off for a while. You start with leafy greens, fresh herbs and eggs. The first time I made it I was expecting a variation on a frittata or herby omelette. I was astounded to discover just how wrong I was!

The dish does require the use of 4 or 5 eggs but are there simply as a binding agent - they do a lovely job of holding everything together. The predominate flavour and texture comes from the use of  large quantities of fresh herbs finely chopped with spinach or chard, and generous amounts of spring onion. It has an incredibly bold flavour, the antithesis of the gentle egginess of an omelette.

It has much in its favour - quick, easy, cheap, healthy, good hot or cold, great next day for lunch or as a central dish for a picnic. The only downside is that it's not hugely attractive to look at... but you will seduced at the first mouthful!

Kuku -ye Sabzi

This is how I made it from memory of a piece I read in the Guardian years ago - and can no longer find - but vary it to suit - you can add turmeric or walnuts or even a little flour if you want it to set more

1 bunch spinach or other leafy green
1 large bunch dill
1 bunch coriander or parsley
1 bunch spring onions
4 -5 eggs
Salt and pepper
Olive oil to cook

Wash the spinach, discard any thick stalks then shred the leaves and put them into a large bowl.. Finely chop the dill and coriander, discarding the stalks and add it to the spinach. Slice the spring onions into thin rings, green and white parts, and add to the bowl. In a small bowl beat the eggs till lightly frothy and pour them over the chopped greens, season well and mix everything together well.

Heat about a tablespoon of olive oil in a small frying pan over a lowish heat then carefully tip the mixture into the pan. Even it out with a spatula then cover with a lid. Leave to cook for 6 or 7 minutes, then gently lift the edges to check that the base is set.

To cook the top I like to tip the kuku out onto a plate by holding a plate over the pan and quickly flipping it upside down then slide the kuku back into the pan, uncooked side down, and cook for a further 3 or 4 minutes. It works well so long as the base is set. But if that seems an adventure too far simply finish it off under the grill.

Onc cooked, slide it onto a plate and leave to cool a bit or entirely.

This was the first day for the 2 element of 5:2 so I served it with some roasted sweet potato salad and sliced cucumber for a richly flavoured - but lightweight - supper. A dollop of yoghurt would not go astray if you like a creamy element.

A Veg Bag Week

I've had a good food week this week, in part because the spring veg has arrived for the bags from Local Greens. One of my reasons for signing up with this scheme is wanting to eat more vegetables generally, and also have them as the starting point for more meals and the random collection each week is quite inspiring and occasionally overwhelming. There was a seductive selection this week - and as I now volunteer with them occasionally to help pack the hundreds of bags they send out each week I am gifted the bonus of some extras from the leftovers. Thursday was mountain of veg day, and also night out at the theatre day so nothing got used except lettuce and tomatoes for crusty rolls.

Friday was better - I've been wanting fish for a week or two so bought a couple of decent cod steaks from Paul on the Sussex Fish stall and simply fried them in olive oil, then finished them with thin slivers of new season garlic and chopped parsley in the last of the hot oil. For the accompaniment I roasted a couple of pointy peppers till blackened, peeled them and added them to cooked farro, and dressed it all with sliced red onions caramelised in basil oil. Perfect summer food.

Saturday we were out all day, gorgeous lunch at A Wong and a (de)light(ful) supper at Terroirs so the only food at home was made by the man strawberry and banana smoothies with coffee and toast first thing.

Sunday breakfast was more of the same and decadent as it seems we had lunch out again, roast at The Canton, which was uncharacteristically quiet for a Sunday which is lovely for us as punters but worrying for the owners if their numbers are dwindling. I had been dreaming of clove and honey glazed ham with creamy potato salad for days as I love the new potatoes served this way so that was Sunday supper with the rest of the barley salad from Friday and lots of lovely leftovers for a few lunches. There was one small disaster too - I had a pretty little purple kohlrabi and I fancied it as a slaw just grated with carrot and dressed with vinaigrette. For some reason I decided to make the dressing with eau de vie from a bottle I bought from one of the Armagnac producers in France. Tasted like you think it would - and no, it really does not work with coleslaw. Live and learn.

Monday I still had mushrooms and kale and I fancied a big robust salad, with walnuts and things. There was a hunk of sourdough left from the weekend that I could see as cheesy crouton, and still plenty of onions and garlic to fry off for flavour. Though it is a bit of a surprise to eat raw kale - it is quite metallic in flavour and a long way from delicate in texture - I have grown to like it very much. The trick I think is to discard the hard stems and then *massage* the torn leaves with olive oil and a little salt and leave to soften for an hour or so before adding the rest of the elements. I cooked lots of sliced onions and garlic in olive oil, then added sliced chestnut mushrooms to cook down and tipped the lot while hot into the bowl of *relaxed* kale. Tossed in a handful of walnuts, some sliced tomato then deglazed the pan with a splash of balsamic and mixed to combine everything before dividing between two big bowls.

The man poached a couple of eggs till just perfectly runny and added them to the top with a crunch of crouton. Seriously great dinner. More mess than I was anticipating but a total pleasure to eat.

Far simpler and much less mess was dinner Tuesday night - just the soothing stirring of rice and stock  for mushroom risotto made rich with butter and Parmesan and finished with celery leaves and parsley. For reasons I don't understand I always sleep well after a big bowl of risotto. Plenty left for lunches for a day or two.

Wednesday was time to use up the last bits from the bag - there was still a few new potatoes, a couple of onions and half a head of new season garlic, a paper bag full of broad beans. For a sunny day a warm potato and allium frittata with a side of broad beans doused in basil oil and a crunch of salt was a delight, and easier than pie.

I bought very little extra fruit and veg - apples, celery and more peppers for morning juice, strawberries and bananas for weekend smoothies and that was all. I used everything I had - the last of the kale and a couple of tomatoes went into the juicer mid week for extra healthy start mid week.

Don't know if the change to more emphasis on vegetables is significant or just that it's easier in summer to go for the delight of light when the sun shines, but I guess time will tell. Either way, it's a pleasurable way to eat.

Little Carrot Pots

The thing about getting a weekly veg bag that is preselected by someone else is that it becomes an ever evolving challenge. To use it all in the allotted time, to make great food - new and interesting dishes with the contents as your starting point and defining guide - avoid disasters, don't let it spoil or go to waste, eat less meat all seem to be considerations. A weekly Ready Steady Cook challenge at home. It's harder than it should be!

This week I had carrots and no plan for most of them. Love carrots - all alone they can brighten your day - they taste great, have a brilliant crunch, are lovely raw, grated, juiced, steamed, mashed, useful in all kinds of stews and salads the whole year long. If they don't come from the supermarket they have the potential to be comedy shapes or the starting point of many a joke. Good for you - the World Carrot Museum summarises neatly -   

 
Let us start with a brief history of Medicine and Nutrition - 

Patient "I am sick".

Physicians responses:
3500 years ago - "Here eat this root"
2500 year ago - "That root is heathen - say this prayer"
150 years ago - "That is superstition - drink this potion"
50 years ago - "That potion is snake oil - take this pill"
15 years ago - "That pill is no good, take this antibiotic"
Today - "that is not natures way - here eat this root" 

 The recipe I settled on this week had piqued my curiosity in the weekend Guardian. It was for a dessert, a concoction of carrot  and cream, gorgeously scented with vanilla and orange then served with more cream in little pots. The man loves little pots! It comes from Thomasina Miers' article about pigs - and her pig idea project.

Carrot and Vanilla Pots

Makes 4

Use the best flavoured carrots you can get your hands on - I find if they smell sweetly carroty they taste pretty good

200g carrots, peeled and finely sliced
15g butter
40g golden caster sugar
Juice and zest of an orange (a blood orange, ideally)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 vanilla pod
175ml double cream
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk

Heat the oven to 150C/300F/gas mark 2. Put the carrots in a saucepan with the butter, a tablespoon of sugar and the orange zest, and add water to cover. Cover and cook on a low heat for 15 minutes. Remove the lid, raise the heat and cook until all liquid boils off – the carrots should be tender and glazed. Add the orange juice and vanilla extract, and whizz to a fine purée with a stick blender.

Cut the vanilla pod in half and scrape out the seeds into a clean pan. Add the cream, scraped pod and remaining sugar, bring to just below a boil, remove from the heat and set aside to cool slightly, retrieve the vanilla pod then pour the warm cream into the carrot purée. Add the whole egg and egg yolk, and whizz with the blender.

Fill four ramekins with the mix. Place the ramekins in a baking tray and pour in enough boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until just set. Remove, set aside to cool and serve at room temperature with cold pouring cream.

 They worked a treat, very simple to do, and I'm thinking they'd be fabulous with a blow torched sugar crust - though that might be because I am hankering for a kitchen blow torch.

A Veg Bag A Week

I have very recently signed up for a weekly bag of vegetables from Local Greens, a south London group who work with organic farmers to provide a selection of good quality vegetables to as many people as want it around Brixton, Herne Hill, Dulwich and Camberwell. A list of what will be in each bag goes up on the site on Monday and the veg is dropped off at numerous locations around the borough on Thursday afternoons to be collected by late Friday. It is a simple, and simply great, enterprise run largely by volunteers that benefits both the consumer with good tasty vegetables at a reasonable price and the farmers who get a guaranteed market for their produce at a  reasonable price. Win Win.

I was a bit over enthusiastic with my choice of bag - I opted for the standard bag with potatoes thinking it would keep us in food for the whole week so long as I made a reasonable plan. What surprised me is that it's the potatoes I find most challenging - we don't tend to eat potatoes every week, indeed I am usually fairly specific about what potatoes I might want and now there's more than plenty to be eaten each week. Last week I roasted them all with some chicken, shallots and garlic - ate some of that hot and put the rest in the fridge for the next day. I'll change to the small bag without potatoes next month but in the meantime using the whole bag in interesting ways each week is my ambition.

This week the bag contatined over a kilo of Valor potatoes, 2 large beetroot, a swede, 3 large carrots, some pak choy, a good sized bunch of wild garlic, a butterhead lettuce, a couple of leeks and a bunch of spring onions. Good value! I hadn't been home an hour and I'd put the beetroot on to steam for salad and I'd turned the wild garlic into pesto with the addition of some toasted pine nuts, walnuts, Parmesan and oil.

Thursday night I roughly chopped yesterday's cooked potatoes and put them into a small frying pan, added beaten eggs and cooked a frittata that was a delightfully chickeny flavour-wise and a proper dinner with a side of steamed beetroots dressed with fig vinegar and a grated carrot salad.

Friday I made a veg heavy lamb and barley soup with stock from the freezer and a sort of recipe from Mark Hix as a starting point. I served it topped with a serious dollop of the wild garlic pesto and lots of crusty bread, a glass of red and a nibble of cheese it was a good dinner.

Saturday I wanted to use the bok choy and the spring onions - those ingredients say STIRFRY most immediately and I didn't want to venture further. I had some thick slices of belly pork in the freezer with no plan attached. Checked through some Fuchsia Dunlop recipes and settled on Qing Qing's Back-in-the-Pot Pork - yes it was the great title. The pork is twice cooked - first it's simmered in water until tender then later stir fried with lots of aromatics - ginger, loads of garlic, the salty tang of black beans, chilli of course and, in my case, chopped pak choy then finished with a couple of the spring onions and sesame oil. I'd done the first cooking in the morning so come Saturday night it was quick and easy to stir fry everything and serve the deeply fragrant result over mountains of steamed basmati rice.

Sunday I had a plan. My friend Catherine told me once that she occasionally makes mashed potato pie for supper. I was nonplussed - I have never come across the idea let alone tasted one and I couldn't imagine what the texture would be like - weirdly smooth with lumps of stuff, perhaps, or crunchy shell with a claggy middle? It also seemed possible that it would be the kind of deeply rich comfort dish that the man would love on first bite and remain smitten forever. I thought no more about it until I came across Anna del Conte's recipe for tortino di puré di patate - translates as baked potato purée with salame and mozzarella - surely nothing if not an Italian mashed potato pie? Given the surfeit of potato for the month and a mozzarella that needed using I could not resist. And so it came about that I served up a smooth rich, surprisingly dense potato purée studded with chunks of toscano salami and a top crisp with golden breadcrumbs alongside a very good salad of basil dressed asparagus and peas, finished with another of the spring onions, very finely chopped.

Monday I defrosted a litre of chicken stock - yes I am still on my Sisyphusian mission to clear the freezer! - to make a vaguely minestrone style soup with lots of vegetables and a handful of tiny pasta, topped with some of the wild garlic pesto. In my mind it was a hearty dish, so thick with vegetables it was practically stew and all of it richly rounded up with the pesto. What it ended up as was an oddly sweetish dish - I think from the combination of swede and carrot and the addition of a tin of tomatoes. The pesto helped but it was a disappointing meal, the more so as I had planned to finish it Tuesday for dinner but it wasn't good enough to do twice so it landed in the compost. I hated wasting those lovely vegetables.

Tuesday then had to be better! I still had lots of beetroot salad, plenty of carrots and the lettuce so I went with something I know well and make in almost never ending iterations - stuffed pita (had some in the freezer). I bought some lamb mince and made little balls with garlic, bhaharat spice mix and the last spring onion finely chopped. I turned a tin of chickpeas into cumin scented hummous, grated a carrot and mixed it with chopped dill and a splash of oil, and shredded the lettuce added a handful of sprouts and dressed it with a spoonful of yoghurt lightened with a dash of olive oil. Fried the balls, warmed the pita and consumed it all with the kind of intense delight you get from great food that was so much better than the last meal.

Wednesday used the last of the beetroot, carrots, lettuce and hummous with warm falafel and the last couple of slices of pita. At the end of the week we the vegetable bag is empty, I've been loving the wild garlic pesto as a new thing, been converted to mash potato pie and generally eaten very well.

Next week the bag contains the first of the salad potatoes which I'm delighted about. Also carrots, spring onions, celeriac, mixed salad, spring greens, a cucumber and white mushrooms - a challenge to use it all and use it well and find something new to make too.