Root vegetables have a reputation problem. Not undeserved — the reputation was earned by decades of being boiled, mashed without enough butter, and served as an obligation on the side of a plate rather than as something anyone particularly wanted to eat. Overcooked parsnip, watery swede, grey-brown celeriac boiled to transparency: these are real experiences that have put many people off permanently.
The problem is the method. Every root vegetable listed above is genuinely excellent when treated properly. The treatment almost never involves boiling.
Celeriac
Celeriac is the most underrated root in the British kitchen. It looks difficult — knobbly, intimidating, requiring more peeling than most vegetables — and is then treated cautiously, which is the wrong approach. It wants decisive heat, enough fat, and time.
Roasted: peel thickly (the skin and the layer immediately below it are fibrous and bitter), cut into generous chunks, toss with good olive oil and salt, roast at 200°C for 35–40 minutes. The outside should be deeply golden and beginning to char at the edges; the inside will be soft and intensely sweet. At this point it’s more interesting than most things that get more attention in the kitchen.
As a remoulade: grated raw celeriac, dressed immediately with a mustardy mayonnaise, salt, lemon juice. Left for twenty minutes before serving, the texture softens slightly. This is the cold French preparation that turns up on every good charcuterie board and deserves a wider audience in British cooking. It keeps in the fridge for three days.
Roasted whole: small celeariac (600–800g), scrubbed, coated in a heavy crust of salt and butter or oil, roasted at 180°C for one to one and a half hours until a skewer passes through the centre with no resistance. Served at the table, cut into wedges, with crème fraîche or salsa verde alongside. This is a main course. It is better than it sounds.
Parsnip
Parsnip is improved enormously by frost, which converts some of its starches to sugar. The first parsnips of the season, in October, are good. Parsnips bought in December, after several hard frosts, are better. This is one of the few ingredients that improves as the season deepens rather than peaking early.
They need high heat and something sweet — honey, maple syrup or just their own sugar released through long roasting. Toss with olive oil, a tablespoon of honey, salt, and something aromatic (thyme, cumin seeds, caraway). Roast at 200°C for 25–30 minutes, turning once. They should be deeply caramelised at the cut surfaces and soft all the way through. Any less and they taste starchy and bitter. Any more and the sugars burn and turn acrid.
Swede and turnip
These two are usually treated interchangeably and shouldn’t be. Swede is dense, sweet and orange-fleshed; it needs long cooking and handles mashing well when it’s had long enough, cooked in salted water until completely soft then mashed with generous amounts of butter and white pepper. This is neeps, and it is excellent.
Turnip is more delicate — milder, slightly peppery when raw — and better suited to quick cooking: roasted at high heat for twenty minutes until just tender, or halved and browned in butter on the cut face before being finished in the oven. Baby turnips from a market in October, served whole with brown butter and thyme, are a dish that most people have never thought of turnip as producing.
Carrot
The carrot is so ubiquitous that it’s nearly invisible. Most people treat it as a background ingredient — something to go into a stock, to roast on the side of something else, to grate into a salad they’re slightly bored by. This underestimates it.
Roasted whole, large carrots (left unpeeled if unwaxed, just scrubbed) at 200°C for 35–45 minutes, develop a concentrated sweetness that has nothing in common with boiled carrot. Cut lengthways, dressed with good oil, cumin, a little harissa and lemon juice: this is a main course in the Middle Eastern tradition and a better one than many.
Raw, thinly shaved with a vegetable peeler, dressed immediately with lemon juice and olive oil: this is the carrot at its most interesting — crunchy, slightly sweet, bright. It pairs well with tahini, with toasted seeds, with anything bitter to provide contrast.
The root vegetables that most people dismiss are the ones that most reward a change of approach. The technique is the thing, not the ingredient.