A Tasty Week

I’m kicking off A Tasty Week with something I’ve enjoyed in restaurants, but have never tried preparing myself: the parsnip.

Pastinaca sativa, the root vegetable known more commonly as the parsnip, is a relative of the carrot. Interestingly, despite its paler complexion, it’s richer in vitamins and minerals than the carrot, especially with potassium.

The Worldwide Gourmet offers tips on choosing and storing parsnips:

Buying tips
Choose small to moderate parsnips, well-formed, smooth, firm and free from serious blemishes or decay. 
Best buy: The first frost of the year converts the parsnip’s starch to sugar and gives it a pleasantly sweet flavor.

Avoid Parsnips with large, coarse roots which will have woody, fibrous, pithy centers.
Avoid also badly wilted and flabby roots which will be tough when cooked.

Storing
Parsnips have nearly the same storage requirements as topped carrots. They can be stored in the crisper of the refrigerator for 2-3 weeks. 
As they age, parsnips dry out and soften.

Well, on the bright side, we’ve definitely had some frost already, however I wish I had known the “choose small to moderate parsnips,” the ones I picked up are ginormous. I’m going to mitigate that by removing the centers, which from my reading are supposed to be woody and gross in the center. The more you know, right?

I’m going to be trying the two preparations I’ve had the most: roasted parsnips, and a parsnip purée. The tastiest roasted parsnips I’ve had were at Tom Colicchio’s Craft in Atlanta, they had a nice crisp to the outside, and were well-seasoned. I had striped bass atop a parsnip purée at CitiZen here in DC, which is what I’m going to model my puree attempt after.

On a tangent, I’ve got a couple challenges facing me on this project: I’m in somewhat of limbo relocating from Atlanta to Washington, DC, and I’ve only brought “necessities” with me due to space constraints — everything else is in storage until I am in permanent accommodations here. Including my “big camera,” and my full set of cookbooks. For almost anything, I can turn to my trusty Culinary Institute of America textbook (if you don’t have a copy, it really is a great “how to cook just about anything” reference), but instead, I’ll be depending somewhat on the web. Life’s an adventure, right?

Back to the food.

So today’s attempt will be roasted parsnips, served along side walnut and gorgonzola ravioli atop wilted arugula, drizzled with sage brown butter.

I based my attempt somewhat on this recipe, though I simplified it a bit, as I’d like the taste of the parsnips to shine through. The mise en place is pretty simple for this dish: parsnips, olive oil, and salt. I started by chopping the parsnips to be of a fairly uniform size so they’d cook evenly, and removing much of the center core of the larger parsnip (I used two of my parsnips for this dish, and reserved the other two for part 2). I tossed them in a mixing bowl with a tablespoon of olive oil, and a couple large pinches of kosher salt:

After giving them a good toss, I spread them out on a foil-lined baking pan (part of my moving drama is that my baking sheets won’t fit in my comical mini-oven in the apartment, so I’m having to use my countertop oven):

I put them into the oven, preheated to 425, and after about 25 minutes or so, they were already starting to brown, which was much quicker than I expected. I don’t have much faith in the temperature control of that little oven, so the temperature is often a bit of a mystery. The strange part is despite some of them starting to brown, I wasn’t getting the crispy outside I expected. I tried giving them a quick blast on convection at a higher temperature to see if I could coax the texture I was looking for out of them, without much success.

The final product (served as an accompaniment to gorgonzola and walnut ravioli in a sage brown butter sauce, over wilted arugula):

While not having the texture I was hoping for, the flavor was GREAT. A wonderful combination of savory and sweet, without being overpowering in either regard. This is definitely a preparation I will attempt again, hopefully getting it as I intended.

Next up: parsnip purée

Ingredients: parsnips (Dupont Circle Freshfarm Market), olive oil and kosher salt (Whole Foods)
Wine: Martin Códax Albariño, Rías Baixas, Spain

parsnip, roasting, side dish, vegetarian