Tom Hunt
Tom Hunt is an award-winning chef, food writer and food waste campaigner. His Bristol restaurant Poco attained the Sustainable Restaurant Association’s highest ever score of 96%.
Tom’s Roasted Swede
Tom Hunt
Featuring:
Swede
Effort:
Complexity:
Cost:
In season now
Serves: 4-6
Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 1 hr 30 mins
Ingredients:
1 swede – about 500g, or celeriac
12 cloves glug of extra virgin olive oil
30g unrefined sugar (jaggery, rapadura or dark muscovado)
20g mustard
Sauerkraut and/or watercress to serve, optional
Recipe kindly shared by Tom Hunt, from Eating for Pleasure, People & Planet by Tom Hunt.
Swede is scrumptious roasted whole, however, coating it with sugar and mustard makes it irresistible, tipping the level of satisfaction to the extreme. This dish makes a great centrepiece for any table and is perfect served hot or even cold the next day, when I love it sandwiched between two thick slices of bread, just like ham, with extra mustard and plenty of watercress. The recipe works equally well with a whole celeriac.
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/Gas Mark 4.
Score the swede all over with a knife, cutting about 1cm into the flesh in a criss-cross pattern – just like a ham. Stud the top with cloves, arranging them evenly over the surface. Drizzle with oil and sprinkle lightly with salt. Wrap the swede in a large sheet of unbleached parchment paper and place in a small ovenproof dish.
Roast in the oven for 1 hour, then remove the parchment and return to the oven for a further 30–60 minutes, or until the swede is well cooked. At this point, remove the swede from the oven and turn down the temperature to 120ºC/250ºF/Gas Mark ½. Mix the sugar and mustard together in a small bowl and coat the swede all over with the mixture. Return to the oven and cook for 20–30 minutes. Carve at the table and serve with sauerkraut and watercress, or set aside to cool and serve sliced in sandwiches.
Engaging Kids
Kids who engage regularly with veg through veg-themed activities, such as arts and crafts, sensory experiences, growing and cooking are shown to be more likely to eat the veg they engage with. Encouraging kids to engage and play with veg is the handy first step to them developing a good relationship with veg and life-long healthy eating.
Kids in the kitchen
The eventual aim, if possible, is to get kids in the kitchen. Don’t worry, this doesn’t have to mean they are with you from start-to-end creating mess and rising stress levels! It can be as simple as giving them one small job (stirring, measuring, pouring, grating, chopping…) ideally involving veg. They can come in to do their little bit, and have fun with you for a few minutes. Getting them involved, making it playful and praising them plenty for their involvement, perhaps even serving it as dinner they “made”, makes it much more likely they will eat the food offered, not to mention teaching them important life skills. Find ideas, safety tips, videos and even a free chart in our Kids in the Kitchen section here.
Activities
While getting kids to interact with veggies for real and using their senses to explore them is best, encouraging hands off activities like arts & crafts, puzzles & games or at-home science experiments can be a great start, particularly for those who are fussier eaters or struggle with anything too sensory. Use these veg-themed activities as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. We have loads of crafty downloads here, puzzles here, and quirky science with veg here.
Sensory
Once you feel your child is ready to engage a little more, you can show them how to explore the veg you have on hand with their senses, coming up with playful silly descriptions of how a veg smells, feels, looks, sounds and perhaps even tastes. Find ideas, videos and some simple sensory education session ideas to get you started here.
Serving
The moments before food is offered can be a perfect opportunity for engagement that can help make it more likely a child will eat it! Giving children a sense of ownership in the meal can make a big difference to their feelings going into it and the pride they take in it. You know your child best, but if you aren’t sure where to start, we have some fun and simple ideas for easy roles you can give them in the serving process over here.
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