Re: [london.food] Chr*stm*s d*nn*r

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From: Simon Batistoni
Subject: Re: [london.food] Chr*stm*s d*nn*r
Date: 12:04 on 17 Nov 2003
On 17/11/03 11:57 +0000, Kate L Pugh wrote:
> I am cooking the vegetable portion of a Christmas dinner for eleven
> people, on Saturday.  I will have a four-ring gas hob, a two-tier
> steamer, a microwave, and a small oven/grill.  (The big oven is for
> the meat and roast potatoes, which are being handled by Someone Else.)
> I will have at least one kitchen slave.
> 
> Current plans:
> 
>  - mashed squash with cream
>  - baked leeks with stilton
>  - steamed carrots (I don't like carrots)

It's not Christmas Dinner without parsnips. You might as well give up
and go home.

Chop them into medium-sized batons (same sort of size as those awful
"baby carrots" you can get sealed in plastic bags in supermarkets).

Put them in a roasting tin with a reasonable amount of Olive Oil, and
toss them around so they're nicely coated. You have 2 immediate
options here:

1) Also mix in some honey; preferrably clear stuff (greek, maybe)
since it tends to have a slightly more savoury flavour. You *should*
get a lovely, sweet/sour honey glaze taste off them, which is just
fabulous.

2) Start them off plain, with maybe just a bit of salt and pepper over
them. About 10 minutes before the end of cooking, sprinkle in a
generous amount of parmesan cheese and toss the parsnips around again
to get a good coating. You can use freshly shaved parmegiano, or
actually, that awful dusty pre-shredded stuff you get in supermarkets
works perfectly well. It's the only place that it does, as far as I
can tell.

Overall cooking time should be 30-40 mins at 190c (375F) (fan-assisted
disclaimer here). My personal favourite is the parsnips with parmesan
- the flavours are absolutely fantastic together.

Simon

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