Parcel-Baked Trout With Three Root Boulangere

A strange by-product of this healthy eating malarkey is that it seems to be generating longer, fancier post titles by the day. Look at this one! Boulangere, if you will! Soon I'll be dishing up flambees and jus (hopefully not together, although you never know) like nobody's business.

This meal came about because we had some leftover celeriac after we'd made winter coleslaw, and I wanted to do something other than just mash it with obscene amounts of butter. I turned to Hugh, and Hugh kindly told me to turn it into a baked dish of boulangere-y goodness. So I did. This isn't as time-consuming as you might think, and it's satisfying in a way that only oven-baked carbs can be.

Three Root Boulangere

(Serves four, or two people on the first day and then, reheated, one greedy person (me) on the second day)

You need:

A little butter, or olive oil

2 small white onions, peeled and chopped

2 clove garlic, peeled and chopped

About half a decent-sized celeriac, or one small one, washed and peeled

2 large potatoes

2 large parsnips

2 tsps dried herbes de provence, or anything similar you have to hand

1 litre vegetable stock (if you happen to have fresh vegetable stock, by all means use it; I never do, so I use bouillon, and it is perfectly fine)

Salt and pepper

You do:

Soften the onions and garlic over a low heat in a little butter or olive oil.  They will only need a couple of minutes as you don't need them to cook completely.  Take off the heat and set aside.

Take a big ovenproof dish and drizzle the base with olive oil.  Next, make up your vegetable stock and set aside.

Now you can get slicing - you want all the vegetables in evenly-sized slices, about 3mm thick, if you can be that precise.  Layer the sliced celeriac into the dish, salt/pepper/herb it generously, then spread over half your cooked onions.  Layer the parsnips on next, followed by the remaining onions, and top with the potatoes.  Pour over the vegetable stock, put a lid on the dish, and put the whole thing in the oven at 180 degrees for about 45 minutes.  After that time, take the lid off the dish and return it to the oven for a further 15 minutes so that the potatoes on top have a chance to crisp up (yum.) 

In defiance of Hugh's all-veg ethos, we served this alongside some parcel-baked trout, which was simple to make (since the oven was on anyway) and made for a lovely, light accompaniment to the rich boulangere.  We simply tucked a couple of lemon slices, a couple of chorizo slices, and a ton of salt and pepper, into the fish, wrapped them in foil, and Bob's your uncle.  We put them into the oven for 15 minutes when we were taking the lid off the potatoes, and that was all they needed. 

The next day, I reheated the leftover boulangere with a dash more stock, and ate it from the dish with a spoon.  It's even nicer on the second day.