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Carrots and Parsnips
649. These vegetables require a good deal of boiling. When young wipe off the skin after they are boiled; when old, boil them with the salt meat, and scrape them first. (Parsnips should always be scraped.) Average time, from twenty to forty-five minutes. 650. TO STEW CARROTS WHITE. - Half boil, then nicely scrape, and slice them into a stewpan. Put to them half a teacupful of any weak broth, some pepper and salt, and half a cupful of cream; simmer them till they are very tender, but not broken. Before serving, rub a very little flour with a bit of butter, and warm up with them. If approved, chopped parsley may be added ten minutes before served. 651. TO STEW CARROTS BROWN. - Take six large carrots, wash and scrape them well, put them into boiling water, and let them boil for half an hour; then take them out, drain, and cut each carrot into as many round balls as it will make; put them into the stewpan with a pint of gravy, flavoured with a little pepper, salt, mushroom ketchup, and Worcestershire sauce; let them simmer for twenty minutes, then take them out, pile them in the centre of the dish, thicken the gravy with a little flour and butter, pour it over the carrots and serve. 652. PARSNIPS would be very good cooked in this way. 653. TO MASH PARSNIPS OR CARROTS. -Boil them till tender, pare, and then mash them and warm in a stewpan with a little cream, a good piece of butter, and pepper and salt. 654. FRICASSEE OF PARSNIPS.-Boil in milk till they are soft, then cut them lengthways into bits two or three inches long, and simmer in a white sauce made of two spoonfuls of broth, a bit of mace, half a cupful of cream, a bit of butter, and some flour, pepper and salt. BEET-ROOT. 655. Beet-roots make a very pleasant addition to winter-salad, of which they may agreeably form a full half, instead of being only used to ornament it. These roots are cooling and very wholesome. They should be carefully washed, but not scraped (or the colour will escape), and boiled till tender, after which they should be pared. As a vegetable they may be sent in hot, as carrots. 656. STEWED BEET-ROOT is extremely good boiled and sliced with a small quantity of onion; or stewed with whole onions, large or small, as follows-boil the beet with the skin on, slice it into a stewpan with a little broth, and a spoonful of vinegar; simmer till the gravy is tinged with the colour, then put it into a small dish, and make a circle round of the button onions, first boiled till tender, Time, one hour and a half to two hours.
Another Mode. - Cut in dice two middling sized onions, put in a pan with two ounces of butter, fry white, stirring continually with a spoon, add a spoonful of flour and milk, enough to make a thinnish sauce, then add to it three salt-spoonfuls of salt, four of sugar, one of pepper, a spoonful of good vinegar; boil a few minutes, then put in the slices of beet-root (already boiled as for salad), and simmer for a quarter of an hour. A little cream may be added to make it richer. TURNIPS. 657. TO BOIL.-Pare them, and if large, split them; if small, leave them whole. Put them in boiling water with a little salt, and keep them well covered until they are tender. They require from fifteen to thirty minutes. 658. TO MASH.-Boil them as above till very tender, then press the water from them between two plates, after which mash them, and pass them through a colander. Then put them into a saucepan, add a little salt, and some milk or cream; keep stirring till quite hot, then serve.
A run of Victorian root-vegetable methods, all built on the same two-stage approach: boil first, dress the skin afterwards, then finish in a pan with cream or gravy. The measurements are in teacups and salt-spoons, and the boiling times assume mature winter roots rather than the young, thin-skinned carrots sold now.
- The hinge: boil first, peel secondSeveral entries here have you cook the root with its skin on and remove it after (the young carrots of 649, the beetroot of 655-656), though others scrape or pare first. Where the skin is left on it keeps the flesh from waterlogging and, in the case of beetroot, keeps the colour in ot not not not not not be scraped "or the colour will escape": cut or scrape a beet before boiling and the water turns red while the beet turns pale.
- Boiling timesTwenty to forty-five minutes fits whole, thick winter carrots and parsnips. Modern supermarket carrots, cut into batons, are tender in 8-12 minutes; whole young ones in 15. Judge by a skewer rather than the clock, and stop while there is still resistance if the roots are going on to be stewed.
- Teacupful and cupfulA Victorian teacup is roughly 4-5 fl oz, so "half a teacupful of any weak broth" is about 2 fl oz and "half a cupful of cream" much the same, around 4 tablespoons. A salt-spoonful, in the second beetroot method, is about a quarter teaspoon \ which makes that sauce roughly 3/4 tsp salt to 1 tsp sugar.
- "Half boil"In the white stew, this means about half the full cooking time — the carrot should be firm enough to slice cleanly and still take up the cream without collapsing. It is the same idea as blanching.
- Boiling with the salt meatThe instruction to cook old roots in the salt-beef or bacon pot assumes a heavily brined joint and an unsalted result. If you try it with modern lightly cured bacon there is no harm, but taste before adding any salt of your own.
- Mushroom ketchupNot tomato ketchup. It is a thin, dark, salty mushroom extract, closer to a soy or Worcestershire sauce in effect. Still sold by British specialists; a mix of soy and a little Worcestershire gives a comparable savoury depth in the brown stew.
- Carrot ballsCutting each carrot "into as many round balls as it will make" is most easily done with a Parisienne scoop or melon baller, taken from the thick outer flesh, though a knife will do it. Keep the trimmings for stock \ the yield in usable balls from six carrots is small.
- MaceIn the parsnip fricassee this is the outer casing of nutmeg, sold as blades or ground. A single blade, or a good pinch of the ground spice, is enough for the quantity of sauce described.
- YieldNone of these entries states a number served. At a guess, the brown stew of six large carrots with a pint of gravy would serve about six as a side dish, and the white stew and the mashes about four.