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Boiled Salsify or Oyster Plant
Wash and scrape one dozen roots of salsify, throw each into cold water to prevent discoloration, as soon as scraped. Throw them into a kettle of boiling water, boil slowly about one hour. Drain, arrange neatly on a plate of buttered toast, cover with Cream Sauce and serve.
A straightforward root vegetable preparation whose only real difficulties are the discoloration of the cut roots and the vagueness of "one dozen roots."
- Acidulate the holding waterSalsify oxidizes to a dull grey-brown within a minute of scraping, and plain cold water only slows it. Add a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar per quart, and use the same acid in the cooking water to keep the roots pale.
- QuantityA dozen roots might run somewhere near 2 lb untrimmed, though the trimmed yield depends entirely on how heavily they are scraped; that is broadly enough for four as a side dish. Roots vary enormously in thickness, so weigh rather than count.
- An hour is too long for most rootsAn hour is longer than most roots need -- modern salsify, cut into 2-inch lengths, is generally tender in 20 to 30 minutes; whole thick roots may want 40. Longer boiling risks something waterlogged. Test with a knife tip from 20 minutes.
- "Boil slowly"This means a bare simmer, not a rolling boil, which breaks the roots up. Keep the water at a lazy bubble and the pieces intact.
- ScrapingA vegetable peeler works better than the scraping the original assumes, and the sticky white latex the cut roots exude washes off hands with a little vinegar. Some cooks boil the roots unpeeled and slip the skins off after, which loses less flesh.
- Cream SaucePresumably a plain white sauce; a standard version is 2 tbsp butter, 2 tbsp flour and 1 cup milk or cream, seasoned with salt and white pepper. Have it made and warm before the salsify drains, as the roots cool fast.
- Black salsifyWhat is sold as salsify is sometimes scorzonera, the black-skinned relative, particularly in European markets. It cooks the same way but the skin is tougher and comes away most easily after boiling.
Salsify (Tragopogon porrifolius) is traditionally said to owe the name "oyster plant" to a flavour in the cooked root that was likened to oysters, and the comparison is at least consistent with how it was served — on buttered toast under cream sauce, much the treatment a dish of stewed oysters would get. It was a common kitchen-garden crop in Europe and North America through the 1800s, valued because the roots keep in the ground over winter and can be dug as wanted, and it later fell out of general cultivation, probably because it is slow to grow and tedious to clean; it is now more likely to be found at a farmers' market than a supermarket.