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To Cook Salsify
Wash, trim, scrape the roots and cut them up fine. Boil till tender, mash and season with pepper, salt, bread crumbs, butter, and milk. Put in a dish and bake brown.--Mrs. A. P.
A plain root gratin that depends almost entirely on how you handle the salsify before it goes near the oven. The original assumes you know what to do about discoloration and about how long the roots take; it says neither.
- Acidulated water firstScraped salsify browns within a minute or two of hitting air, and the cut pieces darken further in the pot. Drop them into water with lemon juice or a splash of vinegar as you work, and boil them in the same, or the finished dish comes out grey rather than ivory.
- Boiling time"Boil till tender" runs 20 to 30 minutes for pieces cut fine, longer for thick old roots. Test with a knife tip; underdone salsify stays fibrous no matter how hard you mash it.
- Bake brownAround 400F for 20 to 25 minutes, on an upper rack, until the top takes color. The mixture is already cooked through, so this step is only about the crust.
- ProportionsNone are given. For about 2 lb of trimmed roots, figure 2 to 3 tablespoons butter, 1/4 to 1/2 cup milk added a little at a time, and 1/2 cup fine bread crumbs worked in, with more crumbs and dots of butter scattered over the top for browning.
- Salsify vs. scorzoneraNineteenth-century American markets sold white salsify, the pale tapered root also called oyster plant. Black-skinned scorzonera, more common in European shops now, behaves the same way in this recipe but needs firmer scraping.
- The sapCut salsify exudes a sticky white latex that clings to hands, peeler and pot. Scrape under running water or wear gloves; it washes off far more easily wet than dry.
- YieldTwo pounds of roots makes a side dish for four to six. It reheats acceptably but the crust will not.
Salsify was known across nineteenth-century America as "oyster plant," on the strength of a faint shellfish note some cooks claimed to taste in the boiled root, and it turns up frequently in kitchen gardens and market lists of the period before falling largely out of American cooking in the twentieth century. Its usefulness was seasonal as much as culinary: the roots winter in the ground and can be dug through the cold months, which mattered where fresh vegetables were scarce between the last of the fall crop and the first spring greens. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by housekeepers in Virginia and neighboring states, is full of these short entries signed with initials; "Mrs. A. P." writes for a reader assumed to know already what salsify looks like and how long a root takes to soften, and the recipe gives no quantities at all.