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Parsnips, Boiled
Wash and scrape the parsnips, and carefully remove any blemishes there may be about them. Cut them into quarters, and throw them into a saucepan of boiling water, slightly salted. Let them boil quickly, until they are sufficiently tender for a fork or skewer to pierce them easily, then take them up, drain them, and send them to table as quickly as possible. The water in which parsnips are boiled should be carefully skimmed two or three times after the roots are put in. Time, from half an hour to an hour and a half, according to the age and size of the parsnips. Probable cost, 1 1/2d. each. Sufficient, one large parsnip for two persons.
A plain boiling method that needs almost no translation, though the timings belong to an era of much larger, older roots than most greengrocers sell now.
- TimingHalf an hour to an hour and a half assumes big overwintered field parsnips. Quartered supermarket parsnips are tender in 15 to 25 minutes; test with a skewer from 12 minutes and pull them the moment they yield, as they collapse into water very quickly.
- The woody coreOlder, thicker parsnips develop a fibrous central core that stays stringy however long it boils. Quarter the root lengthways and cut the core out of the thick end before cooking.
- SkimmingThe instruction to skim two or three times is not mere fussiness: parsnips throw off a scum as they boil. Skim, or boil with the lid off and drain promptly.
- Cut sizesQuartering is right for a medium root but leaves uneven pieces on a large one, where the tip is a fraction of the thickness of the shoulder. Halve the thin end and quarter the thick end so everything finishes together.
- DrainingBoiled parsnips hold a lot of water. Drain well and return them to the dry hot pan over low heat for a minute to steam off before serving, or they will weep onto the dish.
- YieldOne large parsnip for two people is generous by modern portions, where parsnips are a side rather than a bulk vegetable. Reckon on about 6 oz (170 g) trimmed weight per person.
- The price1 1/2d. each is pre-decimal British currency, three ha'pence, and is useful only as a marker that parsnips were among the cheapest things on the table.
Parsnips were a staple starch in Britain and northern Europe long before the potato displaced them, valued because they keep in the ground through winter and because frost converts some of their starch to sugar, making late-season roots noticeably sweeter. That sweetness is why they were traditionally eaten with salt fish in Lent and served alongside salt beef and bacon. In Cassell's they turn up as a plain boiled vegetable rather than a dish in its own right. The advice to send them to table "as quickly as possible" reflects a real limitation of the method: boiled parsnip goes waterlogged and flat as it stands.