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Baked Parsnips
Put four thin slices salt pork in a kettle with two quarts cold water, wash and scrape parsnips, and if large halve or quarter, and as soon as water boils place in kettle, boil about half an hour, remove meat, parsnips, and gravy to a dripping-pan, sprinkle with a little white sugar, and bake in oven a quarter of an hour, or until they are a light brown, and the water is all fried out. Add a few potatoes if liked. Those left over, fried in a hot skillet, with butter, ham fat or beef drippings, make a nice breakfast dish. It is better to dip each slice in a beaten egg before frying. Parsnips are good in March or April, and make an excellent seasoning for soups.
A two-stage method: parboil the parsnips with salt pork, then finish them in the oven until the liquid cooks away and the sugars catch. The instructions assume a wood range, so the oven heat has to be supplied.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. A quarter of an hour to a light brown implies a fairly hot oven; somewhere around 400-425F is a reasonable modern equivalent, though the book offers no guidance and the time may need adjusting.
- The hinge: cook the liquid awayThe dish is finished only when "the water is all fried out." Use a shallow pan wide enough to hold the parsnips in one layer; crowded in a deep dish they steam and stay pallid instead of browning.
- Salt porkFatty cured pork, belly or side, sold in slabs near the bacon. Four thin slices is perhaps 3-4 oz. Unsmoked streaky bacon is the nearest substitute; unsalted pork belly plus a good pinch of salt also works, though the broth will be milder.
- Dripping-panA roasting pan. A rimmed sheet pan or a large cast-iron skillet does the same job and gives better browning.
- TrimmingModern parsnips are often large and woody at the heart. Halve or quarter as directed and cut out any tough, pale core before boiling; it will not soften.
- Boiling timeHalf an hour suits thick, mature roots. Slim supermarket parsnips are tender in 12-15 minutes — take them out when a knife meets slight resistance, since they finish in the oven.
- The sugar"A little white sugar" means a scant teaspoon or two over the whole pan. Parsnips are already sweet; the sugar is there to help the surface caramelize, not to sweeten the dish.
- YieldThe recipe does not say how many parsnips to use; about two pounds will serve four as a side. The fried-leftover breakfast dish at the end is a separate preparation: slice the cold cooked parsnips, dip in beaten egg, fry in butter or drippings until crisp.
Parsnips were a staple winter root in nineteenth-century American kitchens because they keep in the ground: frost converts their starch to sugar, which may be why the book says they "are good in March or April" rather than in autumn. Roots left over the winter and lifted in early spring were sweeter than those pulled before Christmas. Pairing the roots with salt pork is characteristic of the cooking collected in The Dixie Cook Book, which derives from the Ohio-published Buckeye Cookery: cured pork seasons the boiled vegetable and supplies the fat for the browning that follows. The closing suggestion — egg-dipped slices fried in ham fat or beef drippings for breakfast — reflects a household economy in which cooked food was carried over from one meal to the next.