HFF 6.17: Saucy

Finally getting caught up on the actual challenges...

The Challenge: Saucy: Make a sauce or condiment.

The Recipe: Boiled Parsnip with White Sauce, as featured in Gardening Illustrated

The Date/Year and Region: 1885, London

 

How Did You Make It: Half-scale: 3 good-sized parsnips, half a cup of milk, half a dessert-spoon (~1 tsp) flour, half a small lump (~1/2 tsp) of sugar, a piece of butter half the size of an egg (~4 Tbsp), a dash each of pepper and salt. 

 

I cleaned the parsnips (though I couldn't get all the dirt out of them), and put them to boil in a little salt water. When those were done, I started the sauce by melting the butter, adding the flour, stirring it all well, then adding the milk, and bringing the sauce up to a boil. At that point I added the sugar, salt, and pepper, then cut the parsnips into ~1" pieces and stirred them into the sauce. 

 

Measurement notes: I took a "lump of sugar" in the original instructions as about the size of a sugar cube (4 g) or 1 tsp granulated sugar. A dessert spoon, per my favorite "Domestic Measures" list in A System of Practical Medicine (1842) is supposed to equal 2 drachms, (and thus, two teaspoons, at least when dealing with water).

Time to Complete: About 10 minutes on the sauce; I didn't time the parsnips boiling.

 

Total Cost: Everything on hand and/or out of the garden.

 

How Successful Was It?: Pretty tasty. Could probably just a touch more salt, but I found this a perfectly tasty parsnip dish. I appreciate that it gives me another way to prepare them, and particularly to make something that looks a bit fancier for serving at table. The boiling and the sauce took a little of the bite out of the parsnips. From the amount of sauce, I suspect the parsnips I chose were a little on the small side, and that I used for used the largest ones to get a higher vegetable-to-sauce ratio. However, there were still some tough bits at the center of the widest parts of the parsnips, so that's something to keep in mind. I think it would be easier to do this dish by scraping and slicing the parsnips before boiling, and might give that a try next time.

Despite scrubbing and soaking, I couldn't get all the ingrained dirt out of the parsnips, and counted on the scrapping step to finish the job, which it did. Doing so after boiling was a bit different than scrapping or peeling the parsnips before cooking (much like potato skins: they came away readily but also tended to shred).

How Accurate Is It? No major changes to the recipe as written. I think, from how the sauce turned out, that my measurement translations were successful. 

 

Parsnips in White Sauce (1885)