Root vegetables are the workhorses of winter kitchens

Hairy, bumpy, and misshapen, root vegetables are hardly glamorous produce. But these kitchen workhorses are ideal for hearty meals, especially in the pre-green months. "When root vegetables are cooked well, they're naturally sweet and they can really hold their own as the center of the plate," says Jon Cichon, chef of Lacroix.

The trick is to make them feel exciting. Often relegated to prepackaged soup kits or the forlorn corners of the supermarket shelf, the less familiar roots and tubers are nevertheless worth exploring. Jerusalem artichoke; celeriac; rutabaga; parsley root - each has distinct qualities that endear them to cooks.

"Celery root is definitely one of my favorites. It has so much flavor and just that little bit of starch that gets creamy when you puree it. It's incredible in stock," says Rich Landau of Vedge and V Street. "I also love salsify, but it hasn't really caught on here in a mainstream way. You see it in the market and it looks like a bag of brown sticks. What people don't know is that if you peel off the bark and fry it, you'll find a delicious nutty, earthy flavor."

At the Farm and Fisherman, Josh Lawler likes to sauté his salsify with shallot and toasted hazelnuts, cook it with stock and milk, and then puree it to a rich silkiness. At Helm, Kevin D'Egidio and co-chef Michael Griffiths lightly poach salsify in milk and add a few aromatics, with the intention of not overwhelming its subtle flavor. Cichon packs salsify in miso and sugar and cures it for two weeks to produce a crunchy, salty pickle to adorn plates of braised veal cheek.

Purple on the outside and butter-yellow on the inside, rutabagas are both sweet and peppery and, when cooked, can take on a cheesy texture. At Vedge, Landau has served a rutabaga Welsh rarebit flavored with beer, mustard, and vegan Worcestershire sauce. His current menu follows a similar trajectory with the rutabaga fondue, in which the vegetable is whipped into a savory dip with miso and nutritional yeast and served with soft pretzels and pickles.

Honoring its firm texture, D'Egidio braises rutabaga in a curry. "It takes on flavor nicely, but it won't break down - you could ignore it for a little while and it will be fine."

Sunchokes are a current darling in restaurants, with good reason. "They can fry like a potato and they have a super mineral flavor that I love," D'Egidio says. "You can roast them and toss them with lemon juice and they're delicious." Whether processed into a creamy, smooth soup or fried up into chips or pickled, they have infinite appeal. They also play well with bacon and bacon fat, as in a hash topped with a poached egg in Hugh Acheson's Broad Fork cookbook (Clarkson Potter, 2015).

Turnips remain a hard sell to diners, but chefs are excited about them these days, particularly hakurei, the small Japanese variety. Lawler, for one, is firmly pro-turnip. "They're one of my favorite vegetables. If I can get the golf-ball size turnips with their greens, I slow roast them and make a salad," he says.

Some of the negative associations with turnips may have to do with their bitter raw flavor or simply a lack of awareness. "I've been into purple daikon we've been getting lately. I think some customers are only used to seeing it in Japanese restaurants, so they're surprised to see them here, but if you roast it with olive oil and salt, it's great," D'Egidio says.

Known for their shelf life, root vegetables can linger for weeks in the pantry. But that doesn't mean any old rubbery parsnip is going to deliver a delicious outcome. "You wouldn't buy weeks-old fish at the store, so you should try to avoid that with your veggies," Landau says.

It's important to feel the vegetables and even cut into them to assess their freshness and moisture content before committing them to dinner. A snappy texture and a few water beads will indicate they're new to the scene; a stringy texture might mean they're worthy only of stock.

"There's a myth that root vegetables can't go bad, but their starch and water content can change if they're not stored properly, and once they're soft, they're done," Lawler says. "If they're old, they might smell strong or the core might be really tough."

Any root vegetable can be peeled, boiled, and pureed with broth, butter, cream, or something more luxurious like, crème fraîche or sour cream. Add them to the weeknight potato mash along with a bit of thyme or rosemary for a new flavor accent.

Likewise, simply roasting roots is a straightforward approach, but Landau warns to use plenty of oil. Another way to prevent dry or stringy roots is to blanch them for a few minutes. "People are used to taking a few steps with their proteins, but if they want something meatless to have that impact, they might need to be willing to do the same with vegetables," he says.

One easy technique Lawler recommends is to wrap vegetables in foil; add some pork (bacon, guanciale, pancetta, whatever might be on hand); some salt, pepper, sugar, and thyme; and blast it in the oven. The veggies simultaneously roast and steam and come out with caramelized edges. He will dice the root to serve and use the sweet liquid as a drizzle around the plate.

"You know, we have all these crazy techniques, like sous-vide, but sometimes roasting in foil is the best way to go," he says.

With a particularly large parsnip or carrot, he'll roast it under a brick, the way Italians cook chicken, and end up with a huge, flattened pancake.

Keeping the peel on can add interest and flavor and save laborious hours at the countertop, especially with small roots such as sunchokes - just be sure to scrub the vegetables well.

Some roots especially lend themselves to salad treatment. Slice them thin (a mandolin does wonders) or grate them and toss with a citrusy dressing. Or add grated roots like parsnip as a sweet counterpoint to a cabbage slaw. The now-ubiquitous roasted baby carrot salad on restaurant menus demonstrates that a pretty arrangement of different-colored varieties with some green tops, a few ground pistachios, and a bright, creamy dressing can turn everyday carrots into something more memorable.

A surefire way to use up an assortment of leftover roots is to grate them and turn them into latkes - parsnips, beets, turnips, celeriac, and kohlrabi all work well this way.

Then there's the pancake cousin, the fritter. Dusted with garbanzo flour before frying, Landau's celeriac fritters with celeriac rémoulade transcend their innate vegginess to become a golden crisp ball that's uncannily reminiscent of fried conch. The grated celeriac in the classic French dressing (made vegan here with egg-free mayonnaise) serves as a creamy contrast. It's a veggie main that doesn't lack for anything.

The versatility of root vegetables is undeniable, and the possibilities are fairly limitless, says Jon Cichon, who even has parsnip porridge on his brunch menu. "You don't necessarily need to go completely vegetarian, but if you want to mix it up and do something different, these vegetables make it easy."