Recipes from Around the *World*
Parsnips Will Be 'intensely Sweet' And Taste Better If You Stop Using Honey
Roast parsnips are a staple to traditional roast dinners and festive feasts. Less sweet than carrots by nature, their distinctly earthy flavour can be divisive. However, when drizzled with honey before roasting, their natural sweetness is drawn out and they become nicely caramelised.
Nigella Lawson suggests a twist on the classic dish – roasting parsnips with maple syrup instead. The renowned food writer and television cook believes that while honey can become overly sweet, maple syrup enhances the parsnips' natural sweetness and adds a unique depth of flavour.
In her recipe for maple-roasted carrots, she describes it as an upgrade over the traditional method. This innovative approach is featured in her Nigella Christmas book, but it's a versatile side dish suitable for any roast dinner throughout the year.
"I've always roasted honeyed parsnips alongside a turkey, but as a marker of the culinary special relationship celebrated at Christmas, I've remodelled slightly, adding intensity of sweetness to the already sweet parsnips, not with honey but with maple syrup," Nigella said.
She further elaborated: "And actually, this is more than a change, it's an improvement: there is more ambiguity about the maple syrup, it's a sweetness less cloying."
Maple-roast parsnips recipe Parsnips will be intensely sweet but better if you stop using honey (Image: Getty) IngredientsPreheat your oven to gas mark 6/200°C/180°C Fan/400oF, and give the parsnips approximately 35 minutes to cook to perfection.
If you're roasting potatoes before this at a high temperature, it's advisable to parboil the parsnips first so they require less time in the oven; 15 minutes should suffice to make them chewy and maple-bronzed.
Start by peeling the parsnips and cutting them in half crosswise, then halve or quarter each piece lengthwise, resulting in a bunch of slender pieces.
You can either blanch these in salted boiling water for about three minutes, or place them directly into a roasting tin. Drizzle over the oil, toss them around, then drizzle the maple syrup and roast until they are tender and sticky brown.
Exercise caution when checking if they're done: the high sugar content of the parsnips, even more than the syrup, makes them extremely hot.
Nigella Lawson recommends skipping honey if you're making parsnips (Image: Getty) Maple syrup makes parsnips are sweeter but not cloying (Image: Getty)6 Nutrition And Health Benefits Of Parsnips
They can be mashed, roasted, sautéed, boiled, baked, grilled, or fried and add a rich flavor to many dishes, working especially well in soups, stews, casseroles, gratins, and purees.
They can also be easily swapped in for nearly any other root vegetable in your favorite recipes, including carrots, potatoes, turnips, and rutabagas.
Give Parsnips A Chance With This Creamy, Warming Soup
This Creamy Roasted Parsnip Soup plays off the spicy, almost licorice-like, taste of the parsnips. If you're feeling ambitious, top it with Mushroom Shallot Confit. Courtesy of M. Eileen Brown
Raise your hand if you've cooked with parsnips recently.
I thought so. Me neither. There's that certain group of vegetables I routinely walk by when I am cruising the produce aisle — parsnips, fennel, beets, bok choy among them. I like them when other people cook them, and yet they seem a little exotic to me.
Well, I am here to say give parsnips a chance.
This Creamy Roasted Parsnip Soup plays off the spicy, almost licorice-like, taste of the parsnips. The addition of a few carrots adds a touch more sweetness, while warming spices including ginger, cardamom, nutmeg and allspice give it a nice kick. Play around with the spicing and feel free to skip or reduce any you don't like. Just remember, ginger always sounds harmless but can really add heat to a recipe, so go easy.
When buying parsnips, look for smaller pieces, as larger ones tend to be a bit woody. When preparing these root vegetables, treat them as you would carrots. Cut off the tops and bottoms and give them a light peel or a good scrub.
You can top off this creamy, spicy soup any number of ways. Croutons are always a good choice, but you might want to try spiced nuts for a little crunch. I went with a Mushroom Shallot Confit, which involved slow roasting the mushrooms for two hours, an obvious labor of love. This process of cooking the mushrooms in oil at a low heat ensures they are tender and flavorful.
You can also store leftovers in the fridge for up to a month. Use them in an omelet, atop pasta or served on crostini for an appetizer. They added a nice bit of texture to this soup and complemented the spicy sweetness of the parsnips.
Of course, now that we've added parsnips to our cooking rotation, who knows? Maybe fennel won't be far behind.
• M. Eileen Brown is a retired journalist and media executive, and an incurable soup-a-holic.
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Creamy Roasted Parsnip Soup with Mushroom Confit
2 pounds parsnips, peeled and cut into ½-inch pieces
3 carrots, peeled and cut into ½-inch pieces
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
Salt and ground black pepper to taste
1 large onion, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon brown sugar
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground cardamom
½ teaspoon ground allspice
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
4 cups stock, vegetable or chicken
1 cup whole milk
½ cup heavy cream
Preheat the oven to 425°F. Place parsnips and carrots in a mixing bowl and toss with 1 tablespoon olive oil to coat. Season with salt and pepper. Spread vegetables evenly onto a baking sheet. Roast in the preheated oven until vegetables are tender and parsnips are golden brown, about 30 minutes.
Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Cook and stir onion and celery in hot oil until softened and onion is beginning to turn golden brown, about 5 minutes.
Reduce heat to low; stir in butter, brown sugar, garlic, and roasted parsnips and carrots. Continue to cook and stir until vegetables are very soft and starting to brown, about 5 to 10 minutes.
Season with ginger, cardamom, allspice, nutmeg, and cayenne pepper; stir for 1 minute. Pour in broth; bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low, partially cover, and simmer gently for 5 to 10 minutes.
Working in batches, pour soup into a blender and puree. Pour blended soup into a clean pot. Stir in milk and cream. Return to a simmer over medium-low heat. Season with salt and pepper to serve.
Serves 4-6
— Adapted from Allrecipes.Com
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Mushroom Shallot Confit
8 ounces assorted wild mushrooms, cleaned
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 teaspoon fresh oregano, stems discarded
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 shallot, quartered
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
¼ to ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
Kosher salt, to taste
Preheat the oven to 250°F. Halve and quarter mushrooms as necessary to make them relatively equal in size.
Combine the olive oil, garlic, thyme, oregano, brown sugar, shallot, peppercorns, vinegar, and red pepper flakes in a glass measuring cup and whisk to incorporate. Arrange the mushrooms in a single layer in a baking dish or on a rimmed baking sheet. Pour the oil mixture over the mushrooms, and season with salt and pepper. Gently combine the ingredients.
Roast the confit in the oven until it becomes soft and very tender, but still plump, for about 2 hours.
Remove the confit from the oven and let it cool to room temperature. Pack it into jars or storage containers of your choice, along with any leftover liquid or oil.
— From Masterclass.Com
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