Roll out the pastry thinly on a floured board. Cut out a couple of long strips about 1cm (1/2 in) wide. Brush the edge of the pie dish with the beaten egg. Lay the strips of pastry on the edge, curving to fit and cutting so that they go all the way around but don’t overlap. Brush them with egg, then lay the remaining pastry over the top. Trim off excess, and press the pastry down all around the edge to seal. Use the pastry trimmings to make leaves or flowers or whatever takes your fancy, and glue them in place with the egg wash. Make a hole in the centre so that steam can escape. Chill the pie in the fridge for half an hour.
Preheat the oven to 220°C/425°F/Gas 7. Brush with egg wash and place in the oven. After 10–15 minutes, when the pastry is golden brown, reduce the heat to 190°C/375°F/Gas 5. Continue baking for a further 20–25 minutes. Serve hot.
Jicama
Sometimes the best place to hide something is in a place so obvious that no-one but those in the know think to look there. Jicama is just such a cleverly hidden secret, for sale openly in our towns and cities, if only you know where to look. No point asking for it in supermarkets, in farm shops, in greengrocers, in farmers’ markets. No point in asking for it by this name, either, even if you have the finest South American accent – ‘hee-kah-ma’. You must, instead, replace it with a far duller name: yam bean. This is odd because it is neither yam, nor bean, and bears no resemblance to either.
It looks something like a chunky turnip, with a matt mid-brown skin. In other words, it has a thoroughly undistinguished appearance, which makes hiding it all the easier. The place to look, in this innocent game of vegetable hide and seek, is in the vegetable racks of a Chinese supermarket, where you are virtually guaranteed to discover a plentiful supply of jicama/yam bean.
Apart from the fun of the game, there is a point to tracking down a jicama or two. The point is that they are so good to eat, and so different to most other vegetables. Under the worthy brown skin, the flesh is a clean pure white. It tastes, when raw, something like green peas, and has the consistency of a large radish, juicy and crunchy and refreshing.
Practicalities
BUYING
If a choice is to be had, opt for medium-sized jicama – larger ones will have begun to develop a mealier texture, which though not unpleasant is less enticing. They should be firm all over, with a matt brown skin. The skin should be unbroken – cuts or bruises suggest that rot may have set in.
In the vegetable drawer of the fridge, a jicama will last for up to a week, even when cut (cover the cut edge with clingfilm to prevent drying out). To use, you need do no more than cut out a chunk, pare off the fibrous skin, and slice or cube the white flesh.
COOKING
Raw jicama is a brilliant addition to a summer salad, but my favourite
way to eat it is Mexican style. In other words, dry-fry equal quantities of coriander and cumin seeds, grind to a powder and add cayenne to taste. Arrange the sliced jicama on a plate, squeeze over lime juice and sprinkle with the spice mixture and a little salt, before finishing with a few coriander leaves. That’s it. When they are at their ripest, I add slices of orange-fleshed melon to the jicama, which makes it even more luscious. Batons of raw jicama are an excellent addition to a selection of crudités served with hummus or other creamy dips.
Jicama responds well to stir-frying, too, again on its own with just garlic and ginger to spice it up, or with other vegetables. It needs 3–4 minutes in the wok to soften it partially, without losing the sweet crunchiness entirely.
Kumara
It isn’t too clever to sell two different vegetables by the same name, even when they look virtually identical. However, for many years that is just what has been happening. When I was a child, the sweet potatoes that my mother brought home as an occasional treat were always white fleshed and we just adored them: roasted in their jackets until tender, then eaten slathered with salted butter.
More recently sweet potatoes have turned orange and soggy. In truth it is not a miraculous transformation, just that one (in my opinion slightly inferior) variety has replaced t’other. For a few transitionary years, you had no idea which you were buying, unless you scratched away the skin to inspect the underlying colour. Anyone with the slightest bit of sense would have seen that these vegetables should be called by different names, and at last that seems to have happened, with the happy reintroduction of the white-fleshed sweet potato, a.k.a. the kumara, to this country.
The word ‘kumara’ comes from the Maori name for the white-fleshed Ipomoea batatas. They are, as you might well infer from this, extremely popular in New Zealand, and indeed in many places around the Pacific. Their country of origin is thought to be Mexico, where roast kumara are sold by street vendors, to be anointed with condensed milk and eaten as a pudding rather than a vegetable. Try it some time and see how good it is.
Kumara is also the sweet potato used widely in the Caribbean for making pies and dumplings. The orange-fleshed sweet potato is not a good substitute here, as the flesh is too watery and lacks the necessary starch to bind ingredients together.
So the point that I’m trying to make is this: kumara are downright gorgeous and you really should try them if you haven’t already. They are still not exactly commonplace but at least one of the larger supermarket chains is importing them regularly, and you may well find them in Caribbean food stores. Go search and you will be well rewarded.
Practicalities
BUYING
If you have the choice, pick out kumara that are on the larger side, with firm, smooth, dark pink-brown skin. Bruises and soft patches, as always, warn you to steer clear. Cut ends will be a dirty greyish colour, but don’t let this bother you – it’s just a spot of oxidisation, not a sign of something disturbing.
Kumara like to be kept in a cool, airy, dark spot, which is not the fridge. Over-chilled kumara develop a tougher centre, at least that’s what producers say. In practice, I’ve found that a day or two in the fridge doesn’t make any noticeable difference to the texture once cooked, which is handy if you don’t happen to have a cool, airy, dark spot to hand. Better the fridge, I find, than a warm kitchen where they are likely to start sprouting.
Longer term storage (they should keep nicely for up to a fortnight) and you really ought to treat them as they prefer – try wrapping them individually in a couple of sheets of newspaper to exclude light and absorb any humidity in the air.
COOKING
In terms of preparation, remarkably little is required. Give them a rinse, trim off discoloured ends and voilà, one kumara ready for the pot.
Or the oven. Which is exactly where you should start if you have never eaten kumara before. Just don’t stall there, as many people do. Yes, baked kumara are delicious, but that’s first base. You bake them just as if they were ordinary potatoes, in other words, prick the skin and then put them straight into the oven at somewhere around 180–200°C/350–400°F/Gas 4–6. Size will dictate how long they take to cook, but think in the region of 45–60 minutes. Split them open and serve with salted butter, or flaked Parmesan or Cheddar, or a great big dollop of Greek-style yoghurt. Remember that if you are eating them with the main course, you will need to partner them with something salty – I find that they are rather good with bacon, or even with tapenade. Excellent, too, with sausages.
Americans and New Zealanders like to surmount their baked kumara with other sweet things like pineapple, grated apple or dates (hmmm), or drizzle orange juice over them, which makes far more sense to me.
So, once you’ve done the oven experience, it’s time to move on. Kumara can be cooked in most of the ways that suit potatoes, i.e. sautéed, chipped, roast, mashed or boiled (a bit dull, frankly). Additionally, kumara can even be eaten raw, or transformed into pudding. I’ve tried it raw, grated into a salad. It’s okay, but not something to write home about. Pudding, on the other hand, is a natural end for the chestnutty kumara. Think that’s odd? Just try making a kumara fool (see recipes) and then tell me that it’s not pretty impressive.
PARTNERS
In recent days, I’ve sautéed cubes of kumara with diced spicy chorizo, which was very successful, and then taken more sautéed kumara and tossed it with rocket and feta and a vigorous lime juice, chilli and sunflower oil dressing to serve as a first course. Mashed kumara are good on their own, seasoned fully to balance the sweetness, or speckled with finely chopped spring onion or coriander. I rather fancy a smoked haddock fish cake held together with cooked kumara (slightly more smoked haddock than kumara, I think), though I haven’t tried it yet.
Also good, and I say this from experience, is a kumara cake – just substitute grated kumara for the carrot in the recipe on page 28. Fantastic.
SEE ALSO SWEET POTATOES (PAGE 91).
Smoky Parmesan roasted kumara cubes
Just damn gorgeous, these are. They’re wolfed down by one and all whenever I make them. There is something utterly irresistible about the combination of sweet kumara with a salty, crisp cheesy crust and a hint of hot smoke from the Spanish pimentón. They probably should go with something (a real burger, perhaps, or roast pheasant) but you might just make them as a snack when the right moment comes.
Serves 6
600g (1 lb 5oz) kumara
30g (1 oz) Parmesan, freshly grated
1 heaped teaspoon Spanish smoked paprika (pimentón)
3 tablespoons olive oil
salt
Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas 6. Cut the kumara into 2 cm (scant 1 in) cubes. Blanch in boiling salted water for 4 minutes, then drain thoroughly. Toss with the Parmesan, paprika, salt and oil.
Put a roasting tin or baking tray in the oven for 5 minutes to heat through really well. Take out of the oven and quickly tip the kumara on to the hot tray. Spread out in a single layer, then dash it back into the oven before the tray loses any more heat. Roast for 20 minutes, turning once, until golden brown and tender. Eat while still hot, but not so hot that they burn your mouth.
Kumara crème brûlée
The Brits tend to like their kumara and sweet potato served along with the main course, salted and savoury, but they are in fact sweet and suave enough to work nicely in puddings. And if you don’t believe me, just give this one a try.
Mashed with cream and eggs, kumara become as smooth as butter. Add a little heat and they bake to form a tender custardy mixture that is perfect topped with a crisp crust of sugar. Although many traditional recipes partner them with cinnamon and other warm spices, I prefer to add vanilla to highlight their chestnut-like taste.
Serves 6–8
1 kg (21/4 lb) kumara, give or take
30g (1 oz) unsalted butter
30g (1 oz) caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
200 ml (7 floz) whipping cream
4 egg yolks
To finish
caster sugar
Bake the kumara in their skins just as if they were potatoes, or peel and boil until tender and drain thoroughly.
Preheat the oven (or reduce the temperature if you’ve baked the kumara) to 140°C/275°F/Gas 1. Weigh out 350g (12oz) of the hot kumara flesh, then mash with the butter and sugar until smooth. Now stir in the vanilla, cream and egg yolks. Divide among 6–8 ramekins. Stand them in a roasting tin and pour enough water into the tin to come about 2 cm (scant 1 in) up the sides of the ramekins. Place in the oven and leave to cook for about 40 minutes until just firm. Take out of the oven and lift the ramekins out of the hot water, then cool, cover and chill in the fridge.
Up to 2 hours before eating, preheat the grill thoroughly. Sprinkle the surface of each baked kumara custard with a thick layer of caster sugar, then place under the grill. Don’t get them too close to the heat – as with any crème brûlée, they need to be close enough for the heat to melt the sugar, but not so close that it burns before it liquefies and caramelises. As the sugar begins to melt, turn the custards every few minutes so that they caramelise fairly evenly. Take out and leave to cool and set. Eat with a little whipped cream.
Kumara fool
Make as for the crème brûlées above, but leave out the egg yolks and beat in a little more cream. Don’t cook the mixture – just spoon into bowls and serve as it is.
Oca
Will the oca ever make it big in Europe? It ought to. It could…and I for one will be cheering when it does. This small tuber grows well enough here, but its real home is far, far away, up in the chilly heights of the Andes. And in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru it is rated almost as highly as its compatriot, the potato. I first came across oca in a market north of Quito, the capital of Ecuador. It was the last stop of our holiday, so back came my haul of oca in the suitcase (smuggled in, if you must). We ate some, we grew some. We loved them. Almost end of story.
In fact that would have been the end, if I hadn’t spotted oca for sale here at home a couple of times in the past decade. If you are blessed enough to stumble across a rare basket of oca up for grabs, take them at once. The flavour of the fresh tuber lies somewhere between that of a new potato and a tart green apple, with a mealy, soft texture. Very good and just unusual enough to be interesting, without being weird.
The tart, appley tang comes courtesy of a splash of oxalic acid. If this sounds dismaying, reflect that this same acid gives rhubarb its distinctive sourness, far more astringent than the humble oca. Mind you, there are literally hundreds of varieties of oca grown down the backbone of the Andes and they vary from highly acidic to incredibly mild. The sharper varieties are not eaten fresh, but given a ‘soleado’, or a sunning. Left out in the sunshine for up to two weeks, the acidity dampens right down and starches turn to sugars. The result is an even smaller tuber, but with a startling sweetness closer to a sweet potato than any mouth-puckering stem of pink rhubarb. Dehydrated and frozen oca, known as ‘chaya’, are stashed away for leaner times.
The oca has travelled less than many vegetables, but it has at least dashed across the oceans to New Zealand where it is grown commercially in a small way. Here it is known simply as the New Zealand yam, despite not being a yam at all, or Maori potato, or more interestingly, as ‘uwhikaho’, or ‘uwhi’ for short.
Practicalities
BUYING
The commonest of oca, the ones that I’ve come across, are relatively small – say about 10cm (4in) long – have a waxy reddish skin and a crinkled form. In fact, they look a little like pink fir apple potatoes. Unlike most vegetables, freshness is not critical. Smooth skinned, plump oca will be gifted with a more distinct note of acidity than those that are beginning to shrivel a little having had time to develop more sweetness. In other words, this is a two-in-one vegetable, which is a rare and delightful gift from Mother Nature. So, as long as they have been stored well, wrinkles are not to be derided. Soft damp patches or worse still, a hint of mould, are not good things on the other hand. However, since you are not likely to come across oca frequently, you can’t really afford to be too choosy. Just throw out any that are beyond saving.
Oca, as you may well have inferred, keep well in the right conditions. The vegetable drawer in the fridge is just fine, but if the sun is shining, you might prefer to spread them out on trays outside (cover with muslin if you have some to hand, to protect from flies) to sweeten up a little. You can even freeze them – not a bad idea if you’ve found a rare clutch of oca for sale. As with any other vegetable, damp is destructive, so keep them dry.
COOKING
Oca can be eaten raw, especially the sweeter sunned ones, say in a salad, or cut into strips to dip into a chillied tomatoey dip perhaps. I prefer them cooked, exactly as you would a potato. In other words, rinse them, trim off ends, but don’t even attempt to peel. Then boil them in salted water until tender. They can also be roasted in the oven, coated in a little olive oil to prevent drying out, or steamed, or sautéed. They make heavenly crisps, but perhaps that is something to save for a time when oca have hit the big time and are as widely available here as they are in the highlands of Ecuador.
Parsnips
The parsnip is an honest vegetable. No airs and graces, no pretensions to grandeur, no fancy frills and ribbons. It has a solid sunny nature, the kind that one can rely on time and time again. You can trust a parsnip – trust it to come out well, to cook up nicely, to sit comfortably alongside most winter dishes. Your parsnip doesn’t fade into the background – there’s no doubting its presence – just takes a comfortable stance amongst the other elements on a plate.
I like parsnips a lot, saving them for the colder months of the year, which in the past was the only time when you ever got them. Until recently, no parsnip was worth eating if it hadn’t been touched by a frost or two. Now we get them all year round. That’s modern varieties for you. So maybe I’m being a stick-in-the-mud when I ignore summer parsnips, invariably perfectly shaped and clean as a whistle. Although I know that you can, for instance, make a handsome salad with lightly cooked parsnips, I’m really not that interested when the sun is hot, or even tepid, in the way of so many summer days.
Parsnip is a comfort vegetable, one that rides to the rescue when the courgettes have long since swelled to marrows. Plain buttered parsnip is nice, mashed parsnip good, parsnip crisps excellent and roast parsnips totally irresistible. Frosts may no longer be crucial to the success of the parsnip, but nature has a habit of getting things right. Parsnips are definitely better adapted to cold weather, natural fodder for us humans when the cold weather sets in, but well out of kilter with the warmth of summer.
Practicalities
BUYING
Most of my adult life, I’ve bought parsnips from either a greengrocer, or from the supermarket, clean as a whistle and ready to cook. I’ve never been disappointed. Until recently. Until I signed up for a weekly veg box and began to receive the occasional helping of dirty parsnips amongst other vegetables. They have been something of a revelation, inducing retrospective disappointment for all those parsnips that have fallen short of these paragons over the years. Yes, I am now convinced that it is worth scrubbing the jacket of earth off those long ivory roots, just for the exquisite flavour that lies underneath. These have been the best parsnips I have ever encountered, putting all others in the shade. That mucky soil coating does indeed keep flavour locked in, just like my mum always said (actually, she was usually talking about potatoes, but the theory is the same). Look out for the muckiest roots you can find next time you visit a winter farmers’ market and leap on them with glee. As long as the dirt is not there to mask stale parsnips pulled far too long before from the ground, I have no doubt that you will notice the improved taste.
The trouble with this, of course, is that nice, neat, scrubbed parsnips will begin to disappoint. Nothing to be done about that. If you can’t buy them dirty, buy them clean and be sure to pick out roots that are firm and not too heavily blemished. They’ll keep for a few days, but not as long as carrots, I find. Flabby, aged parsnips are not only dull in taste, but also a complete pain to prepare. Put them in the compost bin and vow not to forget about good parsnips again.
COOKING
I like my parsnips peeled, but with organic ones this is not strictly necessary, especially if you have very small parsnips that can be cooked whole. What is necessary with sizeable parsnips is the disposal of the woody core. Cut the fatter parts of the parsnips in quarters lengthways and lop out the white heart – another candidate for the compost bin – before cooking.
Most recipes for parsnips begin with a spell in boiling water (just long enough to soften, but not so long that they go mushy) but after that they will almost certainly demand something more. ‘Kind words butter no parsnips’ is an old saying, distinctly out of vogue in the 21st century when kind words are considered essential to the development of children, dogs and houseplants. But way back when it was heard tripping from the tongues of the wise and wealthy, toughness was an altogether more praiseworthy quality for training the young and the wayward. The point here is the essential buttering of those parsnips. There is no debate on this issue. Parsnips, lovely vegetables that they are, are magically enhanced by lashings of butter or good oil, or dripping, or cream: butter on boiled parsnips, cream and/or butter in mashed parsnips, goose fat or oil and a touch of butter for roast parsnips.
The soft, starchy nature of parsnips makes them candidates for any sort of mashing or puréeing. Straight parsnip mash is perhaps too intensely sweet for most tastes – I find it nicer mashed with, say, half the volume of cooked potatoes, as well, of course, as butter, milk or cream, salt and a heavy dose of freshly grated nutmeg, or a few pinches of cinnamon. Parsnip and potato mash makes a fine topping for old-fashioned cottage, shepherd’s or fish pie.
Alternatively, you could purée the parsnip with plenty of thick béchamel sauce, again softening the total parsnip essence. This mixture can be turned into a gratin of sorts, by mixing in an egg or two, spreading out thickly in an ovenproof dish, scattering the top with freshly grated Parmesan mixed with equal quantities of breadcrumbs plus a few dots of butter and then sliding the whole lot into a hot oven to cook until browned and bubbling. Very good indeed.
Parsnip soups are terrific too, made along classic soup lines, pepped up with curry (see recipes) or with fresh root ginger, cut half in half with apple or pear, or aromatised with lemon thyme. Croûtons or crisp grilled bacon or pancetta are excellent with parsnip soups.
My mother occasionally treated us to Saratoga chips. ‘Saratoga chips’ was the original name for potato crisps, supposedly invented by a disgruntled chef in the town of Saratoga, but my mother’s Saratoga chips were proper British chips, made with parsnip. Great name, great treat. Parboil ‘chips’ of parsnip, being really, really attentive so that they don’t overcook to a pap. Drain well and dry, then deep-fry until golden brown and serve sprinkled with grains of salt. So good. Parsnip fritters are pretty appealing too – again parboil pieces of parsnip, then dip into either a beer batter or a tempura batter and deep-fry until crisp and golden brown. Serve with wedges of lemon, and salt flavoured with crushed toasted cumin. For a smarter starter fritter, cube par-cooked parsnip and stir into the beer batter along with roughly chopped small shelled prawns or shrimps, then fry spoonfuls in hot oil until golden brown.
