It may sound like parsley specially grown for hamburgers, but hamburg parsley is altogether more elusive and grown-up a vegetable than its name suggests.
Despite the fact that the vegetable is also known as turnip-rooted parsley, the root actually looks just like a parsnip, and it is quite delicious to eat. The leaves, then, look like parsley, but they are coarser in both texture and flavour. It arrived in Britain from Holland in the 18th century, but has fallen completely out of favour today, and, as usual, it is the organic growers who get a kick out of maturing it through a long growing season.
Its lack of popularity shouldn't lead us to think that hamburg parsley has become a minority taste because it lacks virtue. It is a subtle, flavourful vegetable, and versatile, too: you can roast it, make chips, mash it, indeed use it every way you might use parsnip or turnip. And then, the coup de grace is the useful, deep-green leaves to be scattered over the dish. The following simple braise is my favourite way of showcasing the flavour of hamburg parsley, and its companionship with garlic.
Hamburg parsley braised with garlic and thymeWash and trim the head of no need to peel them. Place the roots in a large casserole, with as many unpeeled garlic cloves as you like (but not less than three cloves per root). Toss in a good sprig of fresh thyme, then add cold water and a good dash of olive oil, enough to come about half-way up the roots.
Cover the casserole, place on a low heat, and leave it, turning the roots and the cloves from time to time, until the roots and the parsley are meltingly tender, which could take up to 45 minutes. The braising juices should be considerably reduced, leaving you with a slurpy, garlic-infused sauce. You can, if you like, add a squeeze of lemon juice at this point, but it's not strictly necessary. Then finely chop the washed hamburg parsley leaves and scatter them over the dish. This is delicious with any grilled meats which like the taste of garlic, and especially good with lentils.
Megabites
Chez Patricia
Patricia Wells has made her reputation principally as a food reporter, her extensive travels through France chronicled in splendid books such as The Food Lover's Guide To Paris and Bistro Cooking, and she is at her best when faced with the challenge of describing and interpreting someone else's work, as in her collaboration with Joel Robuchon, Cuisine Actuelle.
Her new book, however, sees Ms Wells reporting on herself, for Patricia Wells At Home In Provence is a lavish description of her very lovely farmhouse, Chanteduc, in northern Provence, and of the food she cooks there for herself, her husband Walter and her friends. The reporter's instinct is second nature to her, however, for much of her food is either directly inspired by dishes created by chefs or her neighbours, and Ms Wells then gives her spin on the idea.
It should all make for a charming, inspired text, especially with the added bonus of photography by Robert Freson, who is the finest food snapper in the business. And yet, the text never really comes to life, spending too much time being self-conscious, a fact not helped by the often inane prose. There are some nice ideas, and I am sure anyone who ever attended one of Ms Wells's cookery classes in Chanteduc will want a copy, but the reality is that when it comes to the reporter turning herself into the subject, there really isn't that much to write about.
Patricia Wells At Home In Provence, Kyle Cathie, £19.99 in the UK.
You need to know this
To see a brilliant reporter at work with a subject that stretches him into overdrive, one needs only look to The Dean & DeLuca Cookbook, where the food writer David Rosengarten has collaborated with Joel Dean and Giorgio DeLuca, of the celebrated New York deli.
The result is a brilliant piece of work, 500 pages of inspired ideas without a photograph or a line drawing to detract from the sheer excitement and intelligence of the culinary ideas.
The Dean & DeLuca Cookbook, by David Rosengarten, with Joel Dean and Giorgio DeLuca, Ebury Press (£25 in the UK)
Tip for Tipp
Tipperary food lovers should note that a most talented young cook, Mark John Anderson, is now in charge of the skillet and the grill in Mr Bumbles Restaurant in Clonmel. The menus look utterly lip-smacking: fritters of field mushrooms with a salad of rocket, chicory and a light garlic mayonnaise; Mediterranean sandwich of chargrilled aubergine with roasted red peppers, buffalo mozzarella and pesto; pan-seared brill with a potato galette and a sauce of lemon, herbs, capers and estate olive oil; rod-caught sea bass with aubergine fritter and a sauce antiboise; caramelised lemon tart with a berry coulis. Charming.
Mr Bumbles Restaurant, Richmond House, Kickham Street, Clonmel, Co Tipperary, tel: (052) 29188.
