Parsnips can be peeled, sliced, and sautéed or steamed like carrots. You can boil and mash them with butter and cream like potatoes. Parsnips can be cut into chunks and added to soups or stews or baked in the oven with meat stock and butter. Roast parsnips with beef, pork or chicken. You can parboil…
Root Vegetables
Seven Ways to Cook and Serve Carrots
Carrots can be served raw or cooked. The key to serving the best tasting carrots is to serve carrots that are not too small and not too large and to serve them as soon after harvest as possible. You can eat carrots raw whole or in sticks or grated in a salad. Carrots can be…
How to Cook and Serve Beets
Beets have a sweet, earthy taste. They can be eaten raw or cooked. If you bake or roast beets in their skins, you can enjoy that flavor at its most intense. How to Choose Beets Select beets that are firm with smooth skins and are heavy for their size. Avoid beets that are soft, flabby,…
Parsley Root: Kitchen Basics
Parsley root can be steamed, boiled, puréed, or creamed. Use parsley root in braises, soups, stews, and vegetable mixes to add depth and aroma. The flavor of parsley roots is somewhere between celeriac and carrot with hints of celery, turnip, and parsley leaf. Parsley root works particularly well in combination with other roots and tubers…
How to Cook and Serve Celeriac
Celeriac can be served cooked or raw. Celeriac combines the sweet taste of the mildest celery with the light peppery zip of parsley. Celeriac—which is also known as celery root, celery knobs, and turnip-rooted celery—is a cool-weather vegetable that comes to harvest between late fall and early spring. How to Choose Celeriac Select large, smooth…
Seven Ways to Cook Rutabaga
Rutabaga is tasty served mashed with butter, cream, and spices. Sauté rutabaga in butter with apples and brown sugar, or dice and add rutabaga to vegetable soups and stews. Rutabaga harvest comes from late summer to early spring. How to Choose Rutabaga Rutabagas are a cool-weather vegetable and taste best after the first frost. They…
Eight Ways to Cook Turnips
Turnips can be cooked in several ways. Roast turnips, braise turnips in butter, make turnip and potato purée, glaze turnips, or make a turnip gratin. Small young turnips are delicate and slightly sweet; larger more mature turnips can have the crisp flavor of an apple or offer the biting flavor of cabbage, mustard, or radish….
Radish Serving and Cooking Tips
Radishes are commonly eaten raw but they are also quite delicious cooked in butter. Radishes can taste mild and sweet or peppery and pungent. Common round and oblong radishes can be bright pink to crimson red, purple, and white. Daikon radishes –common in Asian cooking–are ivory. Black radishes–a winter radish–are spicy hot. Radishes are a…
Daikon: Kitchen Basics
Daikon is a long white radish sweet-mild to peppery in flavor and juicy crisp. Daikon–which means “long root” in Japanese–is most commonly eaten raw or stir-fried. It is a staple in nearly all meals in Japan, Korea, and China. Daikon is often shredded and served as an accompaniment to Japanese raw fish dishes, such as…
Five Ways to Cook and Serve Salsify
Some say salsify has the subtle, sweet flavor of an oyster. Some say salsify has the flavor of asparagus or artichokes. Salsify is sometimes called “oyster plant”. Salsify can be cooked in many of the same ways as carrots, parsnips, and potatoes. It can be steamed, baked, boiled, sautéed, or braised. Salsify can come to…
