— Leslie Eleiott

Those vegetables, I think really benefit from caramelization, from a deep, rich flavor evolution that comes from roasting or high heat. I like a mixture of those vegetables. I find that root vegetables get... I lose interest in them, in each individual ingredient after just a couple of bites. I also think that the textural contrast you want is another thing to go for. So with those vegetables you just mentioned, dice 'em all up. I put 'em about maybe one inch pieces, so that they're all relatively uniform in size and shape, and mix them all together. I put some Microplane garlic on them. I don't do sliced garlic, 'cause that will burn faster. So sliced garlic or sorry, Microplane garlic, olive oil, salt. I'm not a big fan of cooking with pepper ahead of time. I like pepper added at the end. But cast-iron pan, get it smoking hot. Once it's smoking hot, your oven's at 400 degrees or so, throw them in there. Just toss them one time to get sort of an equal, no, just, yeah, sort of an equal distribution of them, and then throw the whole thing into the oven. I like it that way 'cause I also then serve it in that dish and it has a very nice rustic appeal to it. A dish that I or a... In addition to that dish that I had working in a restaurant one time, they had a really wonderful sauce, that once the vegetables were roasted deep, dark, charred, caramelized, brown, they tossed them in a sauce which was made of mayonnaise, anchovies, Parmesan, grated Parmesan cheese, and parsley. And that mixture when added on, when they come out of the oven, when they're still hot, and it sort of tosses it all together, it just lightly dresses them. There was a little bit of lemon juice in there as well. Was a really fun, really interesting way that pumped up their flavor just enormously. And it wasn't about adding expense or being fancy with it. No, it's Parmesan and anchovies are both super rich in umami. And root vegetables do really well with that kick of umami that really brings out their earthiness but also accentuates and highlights the sweetness in them that's naturally there. So, that's why it worked so well. And the parsley added this nice, fresh component, and the lemon juice obviously sort of brightened things. But another way around that is take a little bit of soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, other ingredients that have that big umami kick to them, and a little bit of vinegar, something like a sherry vinegar or brown rice vinegar with the soy sauce, just a mixture like that. Again, you're not trying to make it an Asian dish necessarily by adding the soy sauce. You're not trying to alter the nature of the... It's like, hey, here's roasted root vegetables. These other ingredients are there to just kind of augment and accentuate flavors. The other ways to do this are to boil them and to mix them in with mashed potatoes like celery root mashed potatoes are absolutely fabulous. Celery root mashed on its own can be a little watery. It doesn't hold that same fluffy, starchy texture that we like. But mashed turnips, mashed rutabagas with a good helping of butter in there, just maybe a couple of drops of lemon juice, serve that beautiful, sort of, ocher, orange, golden color of rutabagas, beautiful pat of butter melting right on top, maybe just a sprinkle of smoked paprika or yay! Happy times. Happy times, folks. And to make that, you just, just like the potatoes, cut them into similar size shapes and pieces, and then simmer them with as little water as possible just to cover. And there you go.