We’re always looking for tasty vegetarian dishes, and this one’s a beauty. We do it often, and people regularly say it’s the highlight of the feast.

We were put onto this recipe by (the late) Jane Tuckwell, who brought it to a feast one time.

The original recipe is in my favourite Forme of Cury, and goes:

Take rote of parsel. pasternak of rafenns. scrape hem waisthe hem clene. take rapes & caboches ypared and icorne. take an erthen panne with clene water & set it on the fire. cast all þise þerinne. whan þey buth boiled cast þerto peeres & parboile hem wel. take þise thynges up & lat it kele on a fair cloth, do þerto salt whan it is colde in a vessel take vineger & powdour & safroun & do þerto. & lat alle þise thinges lye þerin al nyzt oþer al day, take wyne greke and hony clarified togider lumbarde mustard & raisouns corance al hool. & grynde powdour of canel powdour douce. & aneys hole. & fenell seed. take alle þise thynges & cast togyder in a pot of erthe. and take þerof whan þou wilt & serue forth.

Or in English:

Take parsley root, parsnips, radishes [genus Raphanus], scrape them [or] wash them clean, take turnips and cabbages trimmed and cut up. Take an earthenware pan with clean water and set it on the fire, cast all these therein. When they have boiled, cast thereto pears and parboile them well. Take these things up and let it all cool on a clean cloth, add salt when it is cold. In a dish, take vinegar and [strong spices] and saffron and add them to [the vegetables] and let all these things lie therein all night or all day. Take greek [sweet] wine and clarified honey, together with lombardy mustard [honey and mustard mix] and whole currants and ground cinnamon, sweet powders and whole anise and fennel seed, take all these things and cast together in an earthernware pot, and take some when you wish and serve it forth.

We used parsley root once, but generally it’s too hard to get hold of. Jane used carrots and celery in lieu.

Don’t peel the radishes; top and tail then halve or quarter according to size, and they are really pretty. You don’t need many.

Parsnips, sure. Cut the turnips fairly small as they take a while to cook.

Cabbages are easy — I suggest some red cabbage in the mix for visual appeal.

The pears naturally need less cooking so go in at the end. The recipe reads as if you put in the whole (hard) pear to parboil, then chop up. Jane chopped hers (unpeeled) first and that sounds less messy to a modern cook, so we do that too.

Then you soak it all in the vinegar and spice marinade (we don’t add the saffron!) for a long time.

You then make the sweet-and-sour sauce as the recipe describes. We stir the marinated vegetables into the hot sauce, with the heat still on for a minute, or it would also be valid to mix a cold sauce into the mix and serve it as a cold salad.

Jane’s recipe uses two carrots, a bunch of radishes, a turnip, a quarter cabbage, two pears, half a cup of vinegar, one cup of sweet white wine, half a cup of honey, a tablespoon of dijon mustard, one cup of currants, and the spices. We adjust the proportions according to seasonal prices and package sizes, and it always seems to work.

In truth, I read the recipe to suggest you’d cook this to a sludge, and it would survive a long time in English weather. For us in Australia, the version above is tasty and practical.