I cook them in dripping or butter for preference. Peanut oil if there is nothing else. They take forty minutes to color interestingly but an hour will turn them into vegetable toffee. The initial steaming is worth the ten minutes’ wait and the pan to rinse and dry, helping as it does to keep them moist during the roasting and preventing them from toughening up in the heat.

Ingredients

　　parsnips – 1 pound (450g)

　　dripping, duck fat, or butter – a couple of spoonfuls

　　Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Peel your parsnips, cut them into fat lumps, and steam them for ten minutes in a colander over a pan of boiling water. Warm a couple of heaping spoonfuls of fat in a roasting pan in the oven, then add the steamed parsnips. Roast for forty-five minutes or so, until their insides are soft and creamy, their exterior gold, brown, and, here and there, almost black. An occasional turn in the pan is a good thing, but too much meddling will prevent them achieving the ultimate sticky crust (the same goes for sausages, which I mention only because the two make a lovely pair). Inevitably the parsnips will have one side—that which lies underneath—darker and chewier than the others. It is part of the pleasure.

　　Tender