This particular idea sprang from Delights for Ladies, 1594, Sir Hugh Platt. It was a recipe for 'sweete cakes without either spice or sugar', using dried parsnip as a main ingredient. I haven't made them yet but I'll let you know how I get on.
However, I decided that I would try to make savoury biscuits from a similar base, just for fun and because I love the idea of incorporating vegetables into baking. Parsnip and Rosemary seemed a good combination, so I developed the idea from there.
Forgive my ramblings, but this is how the biscuits came into being. Nothing so straightforward as a clear idea, just playing as I went along.
First I had to dry my parsnips.
Luckily, the weather has been so foul, cold, wet and utterly miserable, over here on the east coast - that we have continued to use the Rayburn for heating, so the warming oven has been available to use too. Very useful for gently drying my parsnips.
I peeled two very large parsnips and then cut them into ribbons, using my vegetable peeler. These ribbons went onto trays and into the warming oven overnight. By morning they were crisp and light, totally dry and ready to be made into parsnip flour.
I decided that the easiest way to do this was in my liquidiser, though I was slightly tempted to use an old fashioned pestle and mortar, but not for long. One minute later I had quite a heap of powdered parsnip and the fun could begin.
Rosemary is such a wonderful herb, with those exquisite blue flowers. I love it and often pop some sprigs into a jug, purely for decoration.
Throughout history it has been widely used and highly valued for medicinal properties.
It was at this point that I suddenly decided to work some Parmesan cheese into the mix, so then I had to sit down and think about what proportions I should use. I'm not a cook, I just enjoy playing around with and tweaking recipes, so it was all guess work. Luckily, the finished biscuits have turned out wonderfully!
Here they are, ready to go into the oven.
And this is the finished biscuit. Crisp, flavoursome and very well received. No one could guess at the mystery ingredient though, which was a little disappointing in some ways. Too much Parmesan, perhaps?
I made a second batch, this time using the herb thyme. I loved this combination even more than the rosemary, although I would be very happy to make either one again.
Parsnip, Parmesan and Rosemary/Thyme Biscuits
Parsnips. I used two very large ones. Peel and then shred them, dry them slowly in your oven until they are so light and crisp that you can crush them/liquidise/process them into a fine powder.
Weigh the resulting flour and adjust your quantities if you need to, keeping to roughly the proportions I used which were, after all, pure guesswork.
80g dried parsnip flour
170g plain flour
100g butter
100g finely grated Parmesan cheese
Rosemary or Thyme - approx 1 tablespoonful
tiny pinch of salt
1 beaten egg, to bind
Mix the dried parsnip flour with plain flour, rub in the butter and stir in the Parmesan, salt and herb. Mix in the beaten egg and make a stiff dough. Knead lightly. Roll out and cut into biscuits.
Bake in oven at 180C for approx 10-15 minutes. Allow to cool for a minute or two and then gently place them on a cooling rack.
Today I am linking up with Karen at Lavender and Lovage in the Cooking with Herbs
category and her co-host Janie, from The Hedgecombers.
I hope I have complied with all the rules correctly. Apologies if not. Please do let me know.
