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Parsnips, Fried
Boil four or five large parsnips in salted water until they are tender, but unbroken. Drain them well, and cut them either into rounds or long slices, a quarter of an inch thick. Dip them into frying batter, and fry them in hot lard or dripping until they are lightly browned on both sides. Drain well, and serve very hot, as an accompaniment to roasted joints or fowls. The batter may be made as follows. Break an ounce of fresh butter into small pieces, and pour over it about two table-spoonfuls of boiling water, stir until it is dissolved, then add a third of a pint of cold water and a little salt and pepper, and mix in, very gradually, six ounces of fine flour. Just before the batter is used, add the white of an egg beaten to a firm froth. Time, one hour or more to boil the parsnips; a few minutes to fry the rounds or slices. Probable cost, 9d. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A straightforward fritter, but the timings and the batter need translating before it works on a modern hob.
- Boil for a quarter of the stated timeAn hour or more will reduce today's parsnips to mush. Cut into even pieces and simmer 15-25 minutes, until a knife goes in with slight resistance; they must hold their shape to be sliced and dipped.
- Dry them thoroughlyThis is the hinge. Wet parsnip sheds batter in the fat and spits. Drain, spread on a cloth or rack and let the surface steam dry, ideally until fully cool.
- The batter, in cups1 oz butter is 2 tablespoons; 6 oz fine flour is about 1 1/3 cups; a third of an Imperial pint is roughly 6 1/2 fl oz, plus the 2 tablespoons boiling water. Expect a thick coating batter, and slacken with a spoonful of water if it will not fall from the spoon.
- Egg white lastFold the whipped white in immediately before frying and do not stir it down. It is the only leavening here, and the batter will not wait.
- Fat temperature"Hot lard or dripping" is usually taken to be somewhere around 350-375F. Below that the batter absorbs fat; above it, the coating colours before it sets. Lard and beef dripping both work; a neutral oil is fine.
- Trim the coreLarge supermarket parsnips often have a fibrous central core. Quarter the thick end lengthwise and cut it out before boiling.
- YieldFour or five large parsnips serve five or six as a side dish, as the original states. Serve straight from the pan; battered vegetables go limp within ten minutes.
Cassell's places this among the plain vegetable cookery of a Victorian household, where the parsnip was still a workhorse rather than a novelty. Before the potato took hold in Britain, parsnips were a principal winter root, valued for a sweetness that survives long storage — the starch converts to sugar in cold ground, which is why they were traditionally left in the earth until after a frost. That sweetness is part of what suits them to this treatment, and the result was served with roasted meat in the same spirit as fried salsify or Jerusalem artichoke. The costing in pence, given here as 9d for five or six people, is a standard feature of the book and marks it as a manual for cooks working to a household budget.