The Odd Couple: Root Vegetables & Cheese

Root vegetables, all clumsy and knobby, are the nerds of the plant kingdom. But they do have their backers. Blogger Julia Mueller, for instance, says roots give her “serious doe eyes,” while one of her readers calls them the “veggie equivalent of a BFF.” In fact, for most northern cooks, carrots, potatoes, parsnips and turnips, along with all their underground comrades, are godsends. When the weather has gone rude and the harvest season is history, root veggies are diverse, versatile and—lucky for us—available.

What’s more, like all good Wisconsinites, they just love cheese, that other champion among winter ingredients. From aged Cheddar and herbed chêvre to nutty Swiss and marbled blue, cheese is the sexy counterpoint to unglamorous roots. They’re like a geek and a hot number together…and who can argue with love?

Fall in love with root vegetables and cheese with these wonderful recipes:

Cumin-Scented Sweet Potato and Gruyere Timbales

I don’t know what took me so long, but I just discovered Forgotten Valley’s Gruyere last summer. I picked it up at the Dane County Farmers’ Market to use in a grilled cheese sandwich, but after my first taste, I quickly promoted it to cheeseboard status. It put me in mind of toasted hickory nuts, fresh hay and aged leather. Later, on a nippy evening in fall, I thought about melting it again, and these puffy sweet potato timbales came to be.

Glazed Parsnip and Parmesan Gratin

I love gratins that feature roasted root vegetables—especially roasted parsnips—but sometimes I just don’t have the time for the oven-browning step. Here, parsnips simmer quickly in chicken stock, which then reduces to a glaze to envelop the veggies. And this, baked with cream and Parmesan? Well, let’s just say you won’t miss the roasting.

Julienned Beets with Roasted Yellow Tomatoes, Blue Cheese Crumbles and Lemon Thyme Vinaigrette

(Pictured in header image) Beets love nearly all kinds of cheese, but my favorite is blue, for the way its funkiness juxtaposes with the vegetable’s sweetness and loamy depth. Go for a more crumbly versus a very creamy blue cheese here; that way you’ll get more contrast between the salty cheese and the earthy beets.

Aleppo-Spiced Potatoes with Hard-Cooked Eggs and Sheep’s Milk Feta

This is a riff on ajiaco de papas, a traditional Peruvian dish that marries New World potatoes and chiles with Old World milk and cheese. For a Mediterranean edge, I included Aleppo pepper and sheep’s milk feta. When it is served as a stew-like entrée with white rice, Peru’s noted Asian influence also gets into the mix. I like it as a side dish alongside good ol’ American broiled flank steak.