A tangle of roots

"sometimes we need to fill our lives with a little more whimsy than a rich, rotting mound of compost" One Green Planet

This post has been sitting in my draft folder for a while. I'm in clean-up mood, so today I'm rescuing this one. It's based on a Nigel Slater recipe, from his book Eat - the updated version of his first book Real Fast Food. There is no official recipe online, but you can find it on two or three different websites - Une Bonne Fourchette is perhaps the best one, and here I discovered that it's actually called Root Vegetable Tangle. ' A tangle of roots' sounds rather more poetic doesn't it? So I can't believe that I made it up.

It's actually barely a recipe, as the enthusiastic writer of a website called Nourish Me says:

"Nigel Slater's simple stuff is where he excels, I reckon, and his latest book, Eat, is a welcome return to form. I've made his Root vegetable tangle 5 times in as many nights, varying the vegetables and, in the interests of getting things to the table faster, using a mandoline rather than a peeler. The rosemary and onion are essential; so is the large quantity of olive oil, I'm afraid, and the pepitas are absolutely non-negotiable but otherwise, play. I like it with a poached duck's egg (god, and how) as much as I like it with pan-fried tempeh or a spoonful of yoghurt." Nourish Me

Fundamentally you shave your roots - with a vegetable peeler or a mandoline - as shown above the writer of Simple Stuff, prefers the mandoline 'in the interests of getting things to the table faster' - toss in oil and roast. Extra flavour can be added - such as rosemary and pumpkin seeds for Nigel, and then you roast them until crisp. The same Simple Stuff writer, says of the extras:

"The rosemary and onion are essential; so is the large quantity of olive oil, I'm afraid, and the pepitas are absolutely non-negotiable but otherwise, play." Simple Stuff

Of course Nigel is not alone in this approach - others, like Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall are even more 'waste not, want not' because they do the same kind of thing with just the leftover peel. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, cooks his in the oven too - having heated the oven tray before adding them to it. Others, deep fry, or else use an air fryer.

I don't know when we started doing this to vegetable peels, but they are certainly a trend, and, of course, you can buy them ready-made. I've only tried it once, and I vaguely remember that I failed, not in the taste, but for the fact that they weren't very crisp.

So inspired by Nigel and Hugh here are few more things you can do, either with just peels, or with shaved or spiralised root vegetables.

Lets be noble and start with the peels. Before you do anything with your peels make sure your peels are washed and clean although I confess if I am just making stock I'm not that careful about that, as I assume I suppose that boiling the peels and trimmings will kill off any bacteria that lurk. But then I hadn't also thought about chemicals on the surface. However, the main thing you can do is to make vegetable stock - either straight away with a pile of vegetable peelings, or from a collection in your freezer.

Anyway I decided today to see what else you can do with vegetable peels, and also extend that to very finely sliced or spiralised vegetables.

Take stock one step further and there is soup. I'm pretty sure there are several recipes out there, but this one for Potato peel soup - from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on the delicious. website is probably a good place to start, and his introduction to it is quite tempting:

"I understand that this might be a tough sell. But bear with me because it's miraculous. There's nothing humble about this soup's rich, creamy flavour - it tastes, remarkably like mushrooms."

There's not a lot in it other than the peels and, some onions and parsley, but he does say you can tart it up with fried sage leaves and bacon. The same principle can also be applied to other vegetables - or a mix. The liquid component is a mix of milk and stock. I have thought of having a go at this recipe from time to time - being a bit of a potato freak and a lover of soup as well, but have somehow never got around to it.

Fritters are next on the list, and I guess pakoras - Vegetable peel pakoras - from Victoria Glass/Great British Chefs, come into that category too. Then there are Veg peel fritters from BBC Good Food. Perhaps I'll include Nigel's Beetroot fritters here, although they are not made from peel - but finely shredded beetroot and onion. So in this group I will also include Roasted rainbow root tangle from Green Kitchen Stories, served with a yoghurt and chickpea salad and for which the vegetables are shredded in a spiraliser. I do sometimes think of getting a spiraliser - maybe if Aldi has one on a special one day ... This writer tells us:

"These little root tangles are quick, cheap and easy, they are crispy towards the edges and soft in the middle, contain a lot more nutrients than just potatoes and since they are baked instead of pan-fried, they don’t cause a smoke alarm situation in the kitchen. Not to mention how pretty they look with the different colors combined." Green Kitchen Stories

Essentially this writer mixes her spiralised vegetables together and then divides and cooks them in little nest which then provide the basis for his/her salad.

Next - two loaves, one with peels and one, not. The peels version comes from Amber de Florio on the Taste website, and is called Vegetable peel and feta loaf. Although Nigel's Parsnip loaf is not about just parsnips - there are carrots and onions too:

"A tangle of root vegetables, parsnips and carrots mostly, coarsely grated and held together with buttery onion and a little egg"

plus a fair amount of seeds and herbs. And:

"The next day I fried slices of the loaf in a little butter and ate them with shredded red cabbage and kale with slices of crisp apple, pomegranates and sticky dates." Nigel Slater

It was a post-Christmas thing.

I've really not been very tight with this collection - if that's the right word. I guess what I've done is collected a few things with occasional commonalities - the most obvious being the shredded or thinly sliced nature of the vegetables. The peels conservation kind of aspect is an extra really. So let me finish with three more very loosely associated recipes - mostly because they took my fancy: Roast winter roots and lemon cannellini cream - Nigel Slater - almost Ottolnghiish this one. Spiralized root vegetable pasta with crispy chickpeas and walnut pangratatto - Hungry Couple NYC - well it looked good. And Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Quick pickled roots - no link I'm afraid. It's a suggestion for using up slightly past their best root vegetables, by slicing them thinly, and putting them (300-400g veg) in a jar with a pickle mixture of: 500ml rice vinegar; 80g caster sugar; 2 tablespoons flaky salt; 1 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds; 1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds (optional); 1/4 teaspoon celery seeds (optional) and a pinch of dried chilli flakes - also optional.

A last thought - on the using up vegetable peels thing. When I looked for something from Jamie, I found that he is sort of the opposite, in that he thinks you should eat the peel anyway - even for things like celeriac:

"I've spent a whole career peeling vegetables and then we slow roasted and confited this whole celeriac and I got to the skin and I'm like 'oh my god this is ridiculous, this is insane it's so good', and I wondered if it's the same with carrot or beetroot or leeks…"

YEARS GONE BY

July 7

2024 - Nothing

2023 - Frittata - a dustbin for leftovers or a gourmet treat?

2022 - Doncaster Japanese

2021 - Malt

2020 - Deleted

2019 - Chicken Marengo - déjà vu?

2018 - Nothing

2017 - Nothing