The best ways to eat root vegetables — firstly, stop peeling them

There are other ways to cook root vegetables than just roasting them in a tin, says Hannah Evans. Try these expert techniques.

It’s the middle of October, which means a new season is here, bringing a colourful bounty of autumn vegetables with it. The perfect time to get back to your roots. Just at the right moment, Mother Nature has arrived with vegetables that give us exactly the kind of food we want right now. Cosy, comforting textures with deep flavours. You just need to discover how to make the most of them.

Hasselback, hasselback, hasselback
Do what the chefs do and hasselback your roots before roasting them. Use a very sharp knife to slice two thirds of the way through each vegetable at 5mm intervals, to create a ridge of slices along the top. “In every little slice, there are pockets for oil and salt, which sink deep into the root,” Clutton says. The ridges also go extra crisp in the oven. A top tip is to place the root on a wooden spoon before slicing — the curved edges of the spoon will stop the knife slicing all the way down to the bottom, making the technique much easier. Alternatively, if slicing something large like a butternut squash, lie two wooden spoon handles beside each other on a chopping board and place the vegetable on top of the handles. There are even hasselback slicing machines available now.

Stop peeling
“The vegetable skins are where all the fibre and where a lot of flavour lies,” Clutton says. Potatoes I peel — I like my mash smooth and skin free, and my roasts skin off. Carrots and beetroots bleed colour, though. All they need is a good scrub.

Add miso butter
Root vegetables are robust and take on big chunky flavours well. “Add simple hits of flavour,” Clutton says. If you’re roasting veg like beets or carrots, serve them with miso butter, which melts over their skins. “You get this gorgeous whack of umami that complements the deep flavours of the vegetables.”

Eat parsnips raw
We eat radishes raw, but parsnips? “They’re not something people think of as good raw, but they are lovely and nutty and a great addition to a slaw,” Clutton says. Julienne them, chop them really, really finely and add to a wintry salad with radicchio leaves, blue cheese and a mustard dressing.

Don’t cook striped beetroot
“Striped beets lose their pattern when they’re cooked, so they look best raw,” Clutton says. Use a mandoline to cut them really thinly. Toss in some olive oil and serve with toasted walnuts and a mustardy dressing. “Not only does it look fabulous but it tastes really fresh.”

Swap hash browns for root veg fritters
Mix grated raw potatoes, swede, parsnips, carrots and beetroot with seasoning and spices, beaten egg and flour. Shallow fry them in batches for five minutes on each side until crisp and golden. Serve with yoghurt and fresh coriander.

How to pick the best veg
It’s very hard to get excited about a lone celeriac in the supermarket vegetable rack so if you can, get down to a market. “The lovely thing about shopping at a market is that you have the chance to pick up, feel and smell the vegetables,” Clutton says. What are you looking for? You don’t want vegetables that are withered at the base. If they’ve still got their tails, heads or a bit of soil, that means they’ve not been out of the ground long. “Generally they want to feel firm and look bright.” Have a sniff too. “If it doesn’t smell of anything, it probably won’t taste of anything.”

Make your own crisps
Use a mandoline or a vegetable peeler to very thinly slice parsnips, turnips and beets. Rinse and pat dry. In small batches fry them in half a centimetre of plain oil. When they’ve crisped up and gone golden around the edges, using a slotted spoon remove them from the pan and put them on kitchen towel to soak up the oil. Season, and snack.

Roots go brilliantly with cheese
Cheeses such as feta, cheddar and gruyère are a great match for roots. For a deeply comforting (and carby) dish, try pairing celeriac with another root veg, like potatoes, adding cheese and putting it in a pie. Blue cheeses add lots of punch that can contrast the calm, comforting flavours of root veg.

Add root vegetables to your traybake
When the seasons turn, swap out summery courgettes and aubergines and instead add peppers, peeled beetroots, and other root veg to the tray bake instead. And rather than light summer herbs, try woodier thyme, rosemary and bay.

What do you do with Jerusalem artichokes?
I boil or steam them, then mash them up with carrots, onions, sweet potatoes and parsnips (or any other root vegetable). Add butter and natural yoghurt to give a slight tang, plenty of black pepper and a little sea salt.

Don’t forget the flavour roots
We often forget that ginger root and horseradish are also root vegetables. Ginger is one of the key building blocks of Indian cuisine and is probably the most familiar of all Asian roots. Use it in stir fries or to flavour sauces. It’s also brilliant in chutneys. Horseradish packs a punch. Make your own sauce by grating it and mixing with vinegar or mustard. If you don’t want it very hot, mix it with mayo instead.

Root veg are perfect in soup
Autumn is soup season and root vegetables make for warming, thick, cosy soups. For the simplest of lunchtime soups, blitz up cooked and peeled chunks with some stock, season and serve with a big hunk of bread. Parsnips can handle flavourings like cumin and turmeric. The earthy beetroot goes well with a tangy, smooth yoghurt, so try adding that too.

But if in doubt, always roast
The natural sugars that are in all root vegetables are brought out when you roast them. “There’s a gorgeous caramelisation that happens when those sugars are heated, which gives them a lovely sweetness and intensifies the flavours,” Clutton says. Slice and chop your roots. Toss them in oil or ghee with some spices and a splash of balsamic vinegar and roast them in a 200C oven for 25-50 minutes. Some root vegetables such as beetroot and turnips take a bit longer to cook, so leave these in for longer. Roots will be ready when they’re tender and crisp.

Mixed root hasselbacks with miso butter

Ingredients
Serves 4 as a main or 8 as a small plate or side

1kg any kind of root vegetables, or a mix
3 tbsp olive oil
120g unsalted butter, at room temperature
60g red miso paste
2 tbsp white sesame seeds
Salt and black pepper

Method
1. First, preheat the oven to 200C fan/gas 7.

2. Wash and dry the vegetables. Trim them, leaving a few centimetres of roots and tops intact. There’s no need to peel them. Working one at a time, sit each vegetable on a wooden spoon, or on top of the handles of two wooden spoons lying side by side on a chopping board, and use a very sharp knife to slice two thirds of the way through at about 5mm intervals. The spoon handles are there to stop the knife going all the way down.

3. Put the hasselbacked veg into a roasting tray that can fit them in one layer, then toss them in the olive oil, making sure they remain cut side up. Sprinkle a little salt.

4. The roasting time will depend on what roots you have chosen — beetroots and turnips will take about 50 min, for instance, but carrots and parsnips only about 25 min. Baste the roots occasionally with the oil as they roast. They are done when tender and crisped. If some are ready ahead of others, just take them out, set aside, and put them back into the tin towards the end to warm through.

5. Meanwhile, make the miso butter. Put the butter and the miso paste into a bowl and use the back of a spoon to mix them together. Don’t mix them too thoroughly — a bit of a ripple effect works well. Use baking paper to wrap the butter into a log shape, twist the ends and put into the fridge until needed.

6. When the vegetables are ready, toast the white sesame seeds in a small dry frying pan over a low heat, then scatter the seeds over the hasselbacks. Grind over plenty of black pepper and serve with miso butter slices on top and more at the table for people to help themselves. These can be served on their own with green salad, or on the side of a meat dish such as pork chops.
Recipes taken from Borough Market: The Knowledge by Angela Clutton (Hodder & Stoughton, £27)