11 Dec 2008, Written by Janina A. Larenas in food, 0 Comments
Roasted Root Vegetables: Carrots, Parsnips, Beets
As pan after pan of candied yams gets passed around the table, it’s nice to offer a beautiful and equally delicious alternative. Root vegetables are an excellent source of nutrients, and when cooked well they are absolutely amazing. My favorite for roasting are carrots, parsnips and beets; they are sweet which adds a delicate counter weight to a savory dish and their natural sugars aid in the easy caramelizing process of roasting.
Before we get started, I want to give you a couple of tips on picking and handling root vegetables.
1. Root vegetables are an excellent source of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and fiber. Roots absorb nutrients from the soil and store them for the plant distributing them as a supplement to photosynthesis, energizing the plant and keeping it healthy. However, roots are sometimes such excellent sponges that they can also hold many of the toxins and harsh chemicals associated with commercial fertilizers. The skins of root vegetables are often the healthiest part, but if you don’t know where your vegetables are coming from, they can also be the least healthy. Knowing this, I recommend you peel them if you plan to use conventionally grown root vegetables. If you grow them yourself or buy them from small farms, organic farms, or any farmer you trust, I highly recommend you don’t peel them, the flavor and texture is greatly improved with the skins on, not to mention the nutrients.
2. Many root vegetables have usable tops. Carrots and beets in particular have excellent greens. Carrot tops can be used in juicing (which I have to admit I’m not a fan of, but if you love wheat grass you’ll love juiced carrot tops) or in vegetable stock, while beet tops are nothing more than ugly looking chard (fig 2). You can use beet tops for a variety of things, cooking them like you would spinach or collards, using them in soups, quiche, sautéed side dishes, or stock. This is true for other root vegetables, like radishes, turnips and daikon. If you can get any of these with their tops, it’s worth it, and if you aren’t sure how to cook them, ask the person selling them. They sell them with the tops for a reason, and most farmers are more than happy to explain why they think they are delicious.
Ingredients:
1 bunch of carrots
1 bunch of beets
1 bunch of parsnips
1/4 c. Bourbon
2 t. Sea Salt
2 T. Olive Oil
Black Pepper
9×13 baking pan
1. Wash and prepare vegetables by trimming the ends and cutting them lengthwise into finger sized pieces. If the beets are small, you can quarter them. Keeping the beets separate, place them into large bowls (fig 3).
2. Drizzle olive oil over the cut pieces, using about 2 Tablespoons. In the bowl with the parsnips and carrots, add the 1/4 cup of bourbon and heavily salt them, using at least 2 teaspoons. Stir them well evenly coating them as best as possible. Bourbon, in this case, is used to aid the caramelization process. If you don’t have any handy, you can substitute 2 teaspoons of sugar, honey, or maple syrup.
3. Place the beets into the baking pan first, distributing them evenly. Allowing the beets to cook a little before stirring them in with the other vegetables will preserve the colors of the parsnips and carrots, resulting in a much prettier dish. Carefully distribute the remaining vegetables on top, and pepper them to taste. Even if you don’t like a lot of pepper, I recommend peppering them well. The small amount of spice will aid the in the flavor contrast of the sweet and savory dish. I use freshly ground pepper on a somewhat coarse grind (fig 4).
4. Preheating the oven. What makes this dish especially appealing is how versatile the cooking temperature is. I find it’s best if you can get it in the oven with a lower temperature dish, around 300-325F, and let it cook for a couple of hours. But, I very often cook it in a rush at 375F or even 425F, which cuts the cooking time down to a half hour to an hour, and allows me to cook it with a variety of different main dishes. Keeping that in mind, if they are the only thing in the oven, start them early and use a low temperature. If you have other dishes on the menu, just toss them in with whatever else you are making, and adjust the cooking time accordingly.
5. After the first 15 minutes, stir the vegetables around, coating them evenly with the juices collecting on the bottom. Do this every 10-15 minutes until the vegetables look withered and are extremely soft on the inside. They should remain slightly chewy and salty on the outside. You can adjust the salt at the end if need to. When finished, serve them in a decorative bowl (fig 5).
Janina A. Larenas is a print maker and cook living in Philadelphia. She is the owner of Little Isobel, a small jam and jelly company committed to working with small farmers to create a fresh local product.
View all articles by Janina A. Larenas.
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