Carrots, sweet parsnips, gnarly celeriac and even Jerusalem artichokes, aka fartichokes (for obvious reasons) are all traditionally English, ancient crops with the exception of potatoes, which only arrived at European tables in the 16th century, brought over from South America.
With sweet potatoes joining the band, there’s a really vibrant and versatile array of the vegetables whose edible parts we dig out from the ground – which of course is what root vegetables are.
Think beyond bland, boiled carrots and you can discover a huge range of cooking uses, the best of which I demonstrate here.
Remoulade is better known as the name of a condiment, but it’s also a salad, with celeriac, that unlovely brute, playing the main part. It’s surprisingly delicious raw, coarsely grated or julienned. With the remoulade dressing, of course.
Buy organic carrots: the taste and nutritional benefits are superior in root vegetables. And especially if you’re preparing carrots to eat raw, which you should, all the time. This salad is zingy, vibrant and as delicious as it is healthy.
Beetroot, on the other hand, is not only for salads though Ottolenghi loves it that way. Beetroot salads are gorgeous, but you can also bake it in a gratin with a Parmesan crust on top. Go for rainbow beetroot for this recipe if you want it super tender.
This is a real showstopper: a whole celeriac baked in a simple flour-and-water pastry crust, which you can crack open like an enormous egg (or a skull, haha). And the celeriac baked like this is soft and deep in flavour, delicious with some butter melting into the crust.
Turnips are quite an underdog in the root veg family, but they are really as tasty as parsnips, they just need to cook a bit more. Which means parboil them before roasting, like you would potatoes. In fact a combo of roasted turnips and potatoes would be quite a winner.
Parmesan roasted turnips
RECIPE
Sweet potatoes in this recipe are cooked twice, first baked – or microwaved if you’re an expert in microwaving potatoes – whole, then roasted in slices until crisp, with chorizo and bacon crumb scattered over.
Sweet potatoes with chorizo and bacon
RECIPE
This is a delicious gratin, and the use of tarragon mitigates Jerusalem artichokes’ explosive qualities. It’s rich – the artichoke slices are cooked in double cream – and incredibly comforting on a cold evening.
Creamed Jerusalem artichokes
RECIPE
Let’s now arrange all those root vegetables together on a tray, tuck them in under a Cheddar blanket and bake until the veg are tender, the cheese is bubbling and the dish is absolutely delicious.
A wholesome vegan main course based around root vegetables: diced veg caramelised in the oven served atop a mound of fragrant bulgur wheat which provides protein, generously.
Roast root veg with bulgur
RECIPE
And finally, don’t forget a particular root vegetable that makes the best cake in the world, as some would claim. My favourite recipe is simple, failproof and not over the top: I swap the cream cheese frosting for an elegant drizzle of chocolate ganache.