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Fried Parsnips
Peel and wash some parsnips, put them in boiling salted water, and boil till tender. Drain and cut the parsnips in thin slices lengthwise, and leave them till cool with a little salt sprinkled over them. Put a breakfast cupful of molasses in a large fryingpan, place it on the fire and let it boil; then put in the slices of parsnips and fry them; when browned on one side turn them and brown the other. Arrange them on a hot dish, and serve.
A short recipe with one unusual step: the parsnips are finished in boiling molasses rather than fat. That step is where it succeeds or fails.
- The molasses is the hingeBoiling molasses moves quickly from syrup to caramel to burnt, and burnt molasses is acrid. Keep the pan at a steady low boil, not a hard one, and pull the slices as soon as they take color — a minute or two a side is usually enough.
- A breakfast cupfulA breakfast cup is larger than a teacup, generally taken as 8 to 10 fl oz. A full cup of molasses in a large frying pan is a shallow bath, and most of it is left behind; there is no waste in using rather less.
- Which molassesUse light or full-flavor unsulphured molasses. The recipe does not specify a grade, but blackstrap is markedly more bitter and will overwhelm the parsnip.
- ParboilingWhole peeled parsnips in boiling salted water take roughly 15 to 25 minutes depending on thickness. They should yield to a knife tip but still hold together for slicing — anything softer collapses in the pan.
- Woody coresLarge parsnips often have a fibrous core. Halve them lengthwise after boiling and cut it away before slicing.
- Cooling mattersThe recipe has you leave the slices to cool with a little salt over them. Cool slices are easier to handle and less likely to carry hot water into the molasses, which spits when wet food is added.
- Serving and yieldAbout 1½ lb of parsnips serves four as a side. Serve at once on a warmed dish — the molasses glaze stiffens and turns tacky as it cools.
Parsnips were a standard winter root in American and British kitchens long before the potato displaced them, and their natural sweetness made sweet treatments unremarkable rather than eccentric — they were candied, baked with sugar, and fried in syrup much as sweet potatoes were. Molasses was the everyday sweetener of the nineteenth-century American pantry, cheaper than refined sugar and used freely in savory cooking.