Category Archives: Vegetables

  • Roasted Parsnips With Thyme

    January 3, 2013

    45 Comments

    parsnipNow that it’s January and we start to cleanse ourselves of the holidays, we seem to fully embrace winter vegetables. Not that we don’t like our winter vegetables, we just like spring and summer produce better (we like spring and summer better than winter, period). But when we do revisit winter vegetables we always come back to parsnips and wonder why we  took so long. Parsnips aren’t just a decent winter vegetable, they can be sweet, flavorful and a lovely compliment to the roasts, braises and stews that make up so much of our cold weather cooking. And, believe it or not, when you roast parsnips with a little fat, salt and thyme you get a snack you can enjoy at any time.

    parsnip1parsnip4If you are unfamiliar with parsnips (or had a bad experience and tried to forget), they are a root vegetable that looks like a large ivory-colored carrot (some varieties are less uniformly shaped). Parsnips combine some of the sweetness of carrots and a bit of the earthy flavors of potatoes with a slight “rooty”, sarsaparilla-like note. Parsnips play very well with heavy fats like cream, beef drippings and bacon fat, so they tend to go with heavier dishes. But you can roast, mash or purée parsnips with just a bit of added fat (or sugar if you are so inclined) for a healthier dish. The only issue left to deal with is texture.

    parsnip5parsnip6parsnip7The big issue with parsnips is in many dishes they are either undercooked and/or have stringy and woody sections. Nigel Slater once noted that most people experience their first parsnip in a roast or stew when they think they just ate a “woody potato”. First impressions often last a lifetime, and this is no way for people to discover parsnips. (It isn’t an accident that most chefs love parsnips, but mostly serve them pureed.) But there is a simple trick that takes care of any textural issues, just cut the parsnip in thin wedges and steam it before you oven roast. The smaller pieces cook in less time and the steaming allows the rest of the parsnip to cook evenly. It does take a few extra minutes, but what else do you have to do in the dead of winter?

    parsnip8parsnip9Otherwise, this is a very easy dish to make. Peel and cut the parsnips into wedges, halve the thin ends and quarter the thicker ends. Steam for ten minutes and then toss the parsnips with a mixture of butter and bacon fat or beef drippings, salt, pepper and thyme (olive oil doesn’t seem to love parsnips, just a FYI). Lay out the wedges on a baking dish and cook in a 350 degree oven for one hour. About halfway through the cooking turn over the parsnips so they caramelize on a few sides. And they will caramelize and give you a sweet, slightly crispy outer crust that gives way to a sweet, earthy and creamy center, simply delicious. You can serve these with almost any meat dish, but we garnish the parsnips with a bit of coarse salt and some chives and start snacking…they never last more than a few minutes.

    parsnip10 Continue reading →

  • Holiday Hangover Soup

    January 1, 2013

    26 Comments

    Holiday Hangover Soup.

    Holiday Hangover Soup.

    …and we’re back! (We had some internet issues. It turns out to be very hard to blog w/out internet access. Someone better get on that.) Happy New Year! We welcome the new year and the end of the holiday season. We love everything about the holidays, but our waistlines suggest it’s good that they only last so long. Soon it will be time for new year’s resolutions (post coming soon, backsliding soon after), but before that we get to deal with the slightly hungover bleary feelings that come with January 1st. Time for a big bowl of soup and the Rose Bowl. Go Stanford!

    hangover3hangover5We call this soup “Holiday Hangover Soup”, but we could just as easily call it “Resolution Soup”  (“Guilt Soup”?), or simply “Winter Vegetable Soup”. You could also call this soup a “Garbure”, if you want to be a bit more high-brow (we don’t). But whatever you call it, this soup combines a rich, flavorful stock and just a bit of pork with winter vegetables. It is easy to make, easy to tune to your tastes and easy to like. You get a lot of flavor and just a little fat to go with a good dose of veggies, and after the holidays most of us need a few more veggies.

    hangover6hangover7This recipe is ours, but we did develop it from a Michael Ruhlman recipe for Winter Vegetable Garbure from his book “Ruhlman’s Twenty”. “Ruhlman’s Twenty” is a cookbook that focuses on twenty specific techniques and/or ingredients that make up the foundation fo good cooking, and then provides a few recipes to prove the point. If you are new to cooking, this is a very solid cookbook for your collection. If you are a more experienced cook, you get some extra pointers on technique and some recipes for inspiration. Worth a look.

    hangover10hangover11What drew us to this recipe was a few tips that make our soup stock really sing. Ruhlman notes that a little tomato paste and a touch of fish sauce in the soup adds umami, while a splash of sherry vinegar supplies acidity for balance. We enhanced / changed the recipe to build the stock from smoked ham hocks and (optionally) add some Sriracha for smoke and spice notes. When you combine these flavors with crunchy, bright and sweet winter vegetables you get a winning dish. The soup is still light and healthy, but the depth of flavors almost makes it feel like a stew or chowder. This soup is a meal in one bowl. And it helps clear a fuzzy head…. Continue reading →