Parsnip

At the top of the garden, past the sunny stone terrace, the little beds of vegetables and the unruly shrubs, is a thicket, less than ten feet (three meters) deep but just enough to give the whole garden an unkempt, relaxed feel. Here lie the compost bins with their lids of rotting carpet, green plastic bags of decaying leaf mold, and four small trees of damson, hazel, mirabelle, and a King James mulberry—the latter being a “guardian” tree planted in the northernmost corner to protect the garden from the north wind. In between grow drifts of snowdrops, wild garlic sent by a friend from Cornwall, and fraises de bois, with which this garden is littered, and whose flowers twinkle like tiny stars in spring. The work in this part of the garden is mostly done in winter, if only because the leaflessness of the trees makes it possible to see what you are doing. It is always dark and cold here, and damp, too. I come in from turning the compost or cutting hazel twigs with my feet like ice, my fingers numb. Invariably it’s a Saturday, when I have been early to The Ginger Pig for my sausages. I leave them to bake with parsnips and stock. A slow bowl of food, which often sits patiently until I come in, too chilled to the bone to do anything but eat.

It is often worth introducing some sort of richness to vegetables with a heart of starch. Ideal suitors include butter, cream, bacon fat, and honey. Jane Grigson suggests cheese, often in the form of Gruyère or Parmesan, as do others, who have been known to roll a stiff parsnip mash in grated Parmesan and deep-fry it as a croquette. To this list I add my own, a shallow cake along the lines of a pan haggerty (potatoes and onions topped with cheese), made with thin slices of the root layered with grated cheese and herbs. Parsnip haggerty, anyone?

The kormas of India, serene, rich, silken, have much in them that works with the sweetness of the parsnip—cream, yogurt, nuts, sweet spices. The Mughal emperors who originally feasted on such mildy spiced and lavishly finished recipes may not have approved of my introduction of common roots but the idea works well enough. Despite instructions the length of a short story, I can have this recipe on the table within an hour. For those who like their Indian food on the temperate side.

The tools for my winter gardening sessions tend to lie on the kitchen floor from one week to the next: the pruning knife, my leather-handled pruning shears, the largest of the two spades, the rake. They serve as a reminder that even though the garden may look crisp and neat from the window, there is still work to be done. It is during these cold, gray-sky days that I sometimes feel as if I live on soup. Roots—fat carrots, artichokes, and woody parsnips— are part of the lineup, along with onions and the occasional potato. I take much pleasure in the way something can be both earthy and velvety at the same time. Rather like my gardening gloves.

Once the snowdrops are out and the buds on the trees start breaking, I have usually had enough of mashed, roasted, and baked roots and am gasping for the fresh greens of spring. As the root season draws to a close, I find a dish of parsnips and celery root, thinly sliced and slowly baked, makes a pleasant enough change. Sweet and yielding, this is both an accompaniment and a vegetable dish in its own right. I have used the quantities below as a main dish for two before now.

This savory mushroom dish is the vegetarian equivalent of a steak dinner. The rich taste and dense texture of the portobellos are complemented by creamy parsnips and lightly cooked greens.

Hearty winter root vegetables take well to long hours in the slow cooker. Turnips or rutabagas can be substituted for the parsnips in this easy slow-cooker classic. For a richer flavor, treat yourself to a bit of cream.

Pretty much everyone has a neighbor or friend (kind of a June Cleaver type) who loves to cook and also somehow manages to be a CEO and raise three Rhodes scholars while spending three hours a day (minimum) in the kitchen. This is the recipe you give that person when she says, “Oh, I’d so like to make something for you.” This is a labor of love, and while not quite as physically intensive as, say, coal mining, it takes a bit of effort. But it’s worth it, because the recipe is big enough to be made in ramekins so it can serve as six little meals, and it stores well, too.

This soup is very warming, and more filling than more common, very brothy miso soups.

(A chunky mélange of rutabaga, carrots, potatoes, and parsnips with a hint of cheese) This hearty soup makes use of a couple of underused winter vegetables—parsnips and rutabaga—to great results. Make sure you have a good, sharp knife for cutting the rutabaga.

A vegetarian dish brimming with Indian flavors, this recipe reminds me of a meal I ate in a London restaurant after enjoying a rip-roaring rock musical in Soho. I hope you have as much fun eating this one as I did that night! For an even healthier meal, use parboiled and precooked brown rice (labeled “instant”) with the same amount of liquid.

This tangy dish has an unexpectedly sweet, zesty flavor that is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. I love serving this to company and seeing their surprise when they discover that they’ve been enjoying turnips and parsnips—vegetables with undeserved bad reputations. Personally, I prefer to leave the skins of the potatoes, parsnips, and turnips on and simply scrub them well and remove any eyes or bad spots. I try to use organic produce whenever possible, particularly when using whole fruit. Peeling is always optional in an infused one-pot meal, as vegetable skins add many vital nutrients. On the other hand, I prefer to eat chicken without the skin.

The crockpot might just have been invented to turn out the most tender pot roast you’ve ever had. Slow cooking makes the meat and veggies here so delicious that you might want to keep the recipe on hand for when company is coming for dinner. We think it’s so special that we serve a version of this at The Lady & Sons. And if you make it in advance, this pot roast just keeps getting better. We eat this with Buttery Stone-Ground Grits (page 25) when we get together for a family dinner.

Beautiful plump fish covered with a butterscotch-colored sauce on a bed of snow-white puree, this is a very subtle dish, in a good way. The ratio of honey to mustard to soy sauce is perfect: you get sweet and salty with a little bite to complement the mild fish. The whipped parsnips are smooth and just rich enough with butter and cream. Bok choy makes a crisp accompaniment.

Root vegetables are particularly forgiving when it comes to roasting times: Slightly undercooked and they have a little extra firmness, while on the other hand it takes quite a while to overcook them to the mushiness point. So this recipe is one of my main choices when I’m preparing an entrée that’s going to require stovetop attention at the end of cooking. While I’m reducing a sauce or sautéing some veal, I don’t want to worry that I’ll need to remove the veggies from the oven at precisely 7:15. And with this recipe, I don’t.

This is an unusual use for an underutilized vegetable. Parsnips are naturally sweet and flavorful, with a delicate earthy flavor. This ice cream was originally developed as part of a caviar dish with sake-cured steelhead trout roe, nasturtium leaves, and fruit leather made from tart cherries. Its creamy color makes people think of vanilla or sweet cream, but once they taste it they are caught, intrigued by the unusual flavor, and they often make a game out of guessing what flavor it is. The caviar dish was a great success, and since then we’ve paired the ice cream with strawberry pie, chocolate tarts, and rhubarb crumble. It goes almost anywhere vanilla ice cream does and adds an extra layer of flavor and an element of surprise.

I once knew a very distinguished French ambassador to the United States who felt that soup was the only way to start a dinner. For Jewish people in France, the broth of a stew is often the prelude to holiday and weekday meals, whether it is an Alsatian pot-au-feu or a North African dafina. A way to give new life to leftover meat and vegetables, soup has always been the food of sustenance for poor people. When I first tasted this extraordinary soup at a dinner at the French embassy in Washington, I thought that it must have been made with good chicken broth and heavy cream, but to my surprise, it wasn’t. Francis Layrle, the ambassador’s former chef, made it with fresh vegetable broth, something he used very often for guests at the embassy who kept kosher or were vegetarians. This elegant and light soup has become one of my favorites, with its wonderful vegetarian broth that can be used as a basis for so many other soups. Those who do not keep kosher may, of course, substitute chicken broth. I have separated the ingredients for broth and soup, to facilitate making the vegetarian broth as a separate recipe for other occasions.

Honey enhances the natural sweetness in rutabagas and parsnips. This is a perfect side dish for a holiday menu.

A pan of these vegetables cooks easily along with chicken, Cornish game hens, or pork roast. Consider adding a dessert to the oven, too. All three items can be baked on separate racks. Place the vegetables in the center and the dessert on the bottom rack.

This is a perfect accompaniment to an autumn meal of roast pork or chicken. You’ll use two oven racks for this recipe. To serve as a vegetarian main course, serve sautéed greens and steamed, herbed wild rice on the side.

A high-in-folate parsnip looks like a funky carrot, but this root veggie is sweeter and slightly nutty.

Chef Cathal Armstrong of Restaurant Eve in Alexandria, Virginia, shared this recipe as part of a St. Patrick's Day feast he created exclusively for Epicurious. Armstrong suggests serving a Rhône-style wine such as Syrah or Grenache with this full-flavored dish.

A rich, substantial wintertime stew that benefits from fresh vegetables added late enough that they don't turn to mush. To turn this into a delicious twist on the Belgian classic, beef carbonnade, omit the wine and use your favorite dark beer in place of half of the stock.

Don't be afraid of oxtail. Just knowing that it comes from the tail of a cow (it used to be the ox, but most oxtail sold in butcher's shops is from cow now) puts some people off. Have a sense of adventure and try it. Don't just stick with the same old foods. This recipe may sound intimidating, but this is really just great peasant food. There's not a lot of meat on oxtail bones, so you might think it's not worth your time to make it. However, oxtail has a lot of muscle on it, which gets broken down when you braise it. The meat that is there falls apart and becomes gelatinous. That makes this oxtail so damned good. You only need a small amount to feel satisfied, so it's a dish rich in taste for not much price. Plus, when you braise the oxtail, you can braise it in water or chicken stock and have a flavorful stock left over for other dishes. At Papillon, our wild mushroom raviolis bobbed in oxtail broth. Making this recipe will take time, but that's where flavor is born. It's worth your time.