Tuesday 28 February 2012

Parsnip and Thyme bread

Jane made this delicious Parsnip and Thyme bread:


It's from the recipe in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's book "River Cottage everyday". It's a type of soda bread or damper - quick and easy to make and and utterly delicious, especially when served still warm from the oven.




We had ours with a bowl of lightly-curried lentil soup, made with lots of swede turnip. Since the bread has cheese in it we were a bit worried that it would clash with the curry flavour, but they actually went very well together. The dominant flavour in the bread was the parsnip, since it was made with some of the wonderfully fresh organic parsnips from our Abel and Cole veg-box.


The cheese and parsnip in this bread make it a nice moist texture, much less dry than many soda breads.
I should think it would be good with onion marmalade or some of Green Dragonette's  amazing Tomato, Pumpkin and Balsamic chutney (as well as a good hunk of Cheddar cheese). Hugh F-W advocates spreading lots of butter on it, but if you're going to do this I suggest softening the butter beforehand since the bread is quite crumbly.


We only ate half of the loaf at the first sitting. We wrapped the other half in some tinfoil and ate it the next day, warmed-up in the oven. It wasn't quite as nice second time round, but it was still very good!

17 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness, you really know how to set my tastebuds a tingle. That looks very tasty indeed. Green Dragonette's chutney recipe is calling to me too.

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  2. Oooh, I've made that, it's looovely!

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  3. Sounds so good! I can only imagine aroma in the house while it was baking!

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  4. Sounds interesting and looks moist and delicious...the parsnips must give it the moisture?

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  5. Delicious ! Right, I'm off to catch me some parsnips. :-)

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  6. That looks amazing! I could see myself scoffing the lot.

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  7. First time looking at parsnip bread. I think cheese and curry will go well together. Only have a few parsnip left in the container. But I think I am going to save that until early winter.

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  8. I love Hugh, I love Parsnips - Can't go wrong really, I think this will be on the menu very soon.

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  9. Oh my goodness! This looks and sounds great. I so love parsnips, but they aren't the same here in Oz. You need a good nip from frost to get them tasting fabulous.

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  10. That bread looks amazing! Parsnip and thyme are two perfect ingredients and I can really see how they would make abrilliant loaf. Nice!

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  11. Wow, that looks delicious. Definitely something I'd enjoy, especially dripping in butter.

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  12. It looks like a great big scone doesn't it - sounds ideal to go with the soup - clever Jane and clever Hugh

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  13. Hi Mark-just love the look of that bread-it definitely ticks all my boxes!! The lovely close up photos particularly the one showing its hunky middle were fab...I could almost taste it! And thank so much indeed for the mention of my humble chutney and the link too! Now feeling hungry so I must be starting to feel better...

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