Parsnips

Raw Parsnips

I love parsnips roasted with a beef pot roast. If you've always added carrots and potatoes to your pot roaster pan, you should try adding a few parsnips as well.  Roasted in the beef dripping until they caramelize, parsnips will be sweet and buttery. And yes, they are also very good roasted along side a chicken or pork roast, but I like beef best.  The main thing is to roast them.

I've seen recipes for candied parsnips, similar to candied sweet potatoes and also recipes for roasted parsnips that are then drizzled with honey. To my taste buds parsnips are sweet enough on their own and do not need any extra sweetening.

In fact, I find they are too sweet when included in a beef stew. Roasted along side a beef roast brings out the rich flavor of the parsnips, but braised in a stew they don't caramalize enough.  Since I raise beef cattle for both breeding stock and beef for my table,  I usually keep things like ground beef,  stew beef and the ox tail and soup bones and sell most of the steaks and the roasts, so my beef and parsnips is more likely to be beef stew or vegetable beef soup.

roasted parsnips

I love to brown off a pound of stew beef and cook it low and slow until it is meltingly tender.  I usually braise the meat in chicken stock and water with a bay leaf, a good pinch of my home grown dried thyme, salt and pepper and a couple of shakes of Worcestershire sauce.  This make a great base for a lot of other dishes such as beef Stroganoff, Italian beef and tomatoes, what I call New England spiced beef and of course beef stew with carrots and parsnips. 

I always start by sauteing yellow onions in the fond left from browning the beef and I add chopped celery and some celery leaves as well but the carrots and especially the parsnips are just too sweet cooked in a braise or soup broth.  The solution is a splash of balsamic or red wine vinegar. The vinegar cuts the sweetness of the root vegetables but you don't taste the vinegar in the least.  Just adding red wine doesn't do the trick, it must be vinegar, preferably balsamic. The result is a rich, beefy very flavorful beef soup or stew full of healthy vegetables (no potatoes).  I serve it with a green salad and you could add some good bread to sop up the rich, thick stew gravy, but its not entirely necessary. This is an economical, healthy meal anyone but a vegetarian would love.

This year, for the first time, I ordered parsnips seeds so I can grow my own. I'm looking forward to lots of parsnips dishes next fall and winter.