Parsnips — when prime time is past, purée is the perfect solution

Like many cooks, I have a favorite secret ingredient. You use a little of it, and it saves dinner. And I'm not talking something fancy like fennel pollen or walnut oil.

For years, I was in love with the idea of homemade chicken potpie, but every time I made it, I got bored after a few bites. Finally, last year, I made a potpie that lived up to my fantasy, and the ingredient that made it great wasn't the whole-wheat, cheddar biscuit crust. It was the cubed parsnips underneath.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for potatoes and carrots, but they can easily turn bland and monotonous. Not so the parsnip, whose sweet, earthy character is hard to subdue.

I've come to understand that, as with other produce in this age of farmers markets, parsnips are really two different vegetables. In late fall to early winter, local farmers bring slender, firm, white parsnips to market. They don't need to be peeled; just rub them with salt and olive oil and roast them at high heat until they're crispy without and yielding within. I make these a couple times a week in season, and some days I like them better than French fries.

Later in spring, I often trot over to a market stand, lured by what appear to be perfect parsnips, only to find that they're white carrots. This is a big disappointment, even though I like carrots.

The rest of the year, and at all times at the supermarket, the parsnip is a different animal. I mean vegetable. You'd never mistake these fat, beige specimens for carrots, and if you roast them whole, you'll end up gnawing on cellulose.

Perhaps I should have just given up on these lumbering offseason parsnips, but I'm a bit obsessed with unlovable vegetables and wondered if their rusticity could be tamed. So I called some local chefs known for their vegetable cookery, all of whom turned out to love parsnips as much as I do. Each prescribed a form of parsnip purée.

Jason Wilson, Crush: Wilson likes a refined purée, what he calls "white-white." He lightly peels the parsnips and cuts them into chunks, woody core and all, and simmers them in heavy cream with a bay leaf. Then he purées the parsnips and cream in his brawny Vita-Mix blender, passes the purée through a tamis (like a big strainer), and seasons with salt. "We serve that with, Jeez Louise, everything," said Wilson. "Veal chop, with preserved pears for the garnish. Because it's so sweet, for New Year's Eve in 2005, going into 2006, we did parsnip purée with lobster poached in butter. It was amazing."

Maria Hines, Tilth: For her standard purée, Hines simmers parsnip chunks in water or whole milk with a bouquet garni, strains out the liquid and purées the parsnips, adding back only as much liquid as needed. "Blend it twice as much as you think you're going to need to," she advised. "Parsnips are sweet, and they can work well for dessert," Hines added. To that end, she's simmered parsnips in simple syrup to make a sweet purée for serving with cheesecake.

Kerry Sear, ART: The subject of parsnips stirred Sear to reminisce about his childhood in England. "I just love roast parsnips," he said. "My grandmother used to roast them around the beef. I like that charred-on-the-end-and-soft-in-the-middle kind of thing, when you get a little caramelization." For his purée, he peels, cores and chops the parsnips and simmers them in vegetable stock with chopped white onion. This goes in a covered braising pan in the oven.

Then he blends the parsnips in a food processor and adds a bit of butter and cream. "You can add a little bit of potato when you're braising them," said Sear. "That helps just make them a little bit firmer."

I carted home half the parsnips at my local QFC and got cooking, and I learned something from every chef:

1. There's no reason to remove the woody core as long as you pass the purée through a sieve. Coring parsnips is a big pain. Also, cream is awesome.

2. To avoid a soupy purée, it's vital to strain out the cooking liquid and add it back while puréeing. Processing for several minutes to get a smooth texture isn't excessive — you can't overmix a parsnip.

3. I was skeptical about vegetable stock — what can compete with cream? — but simmering the parsnips in stock and adding cream and butter at the end produces the most balanced and flavorful purée. The all-cream purée is wonderful, of course, but it's hard to make it through more than a few bites.

Best of all, I learned, you can make a brilliant purée from suspicious-looking supermarket parsnips. I combined the three chefs' approaches into my own franken-recipe. It's wonderful thinned into a soup and garnished with caramelized parsnip slices, or stirred into macaroni and cheese, or served with chili con carne, with fish, with ... Jeez Louise, everything.

Matthew Amster-Burton is a Seattle freelance writer. Barry Wong is a Seattle-based freelance photographer. He can be reached at studio@barrywongphoto.com.

Parsnip Purée

Makes 1 ½ cups

1 pound parsnips, peeled, ends trimmed, and cut into ½-inch dice

1 ½ cups vegetable stock

¼ cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Salt, to taste

1. Place the parsnip chunks and vegetable stock in a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the parsnips pierce easily with a fork, 20 to 25 minutes.

2. Strain the stock into a bowl and place the parsnips in a food processor. Add the cream, butter and salt to taste. Process until very smooth, about 2 minutes, adding back the stock until the purée reaches the desired consistency. Keep in mind that the purée will be somewhat thinner after you sieve it.

3. Using a rubber spatula, work the purée through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl. Taste for salt and serve immediately.