Spicy roast parsnips with barley, raisins, walnuts

Serves 4

Parsnips are delicious with curry spices, particularly when roasted so that their thin, tapering ends turn delectably sweet and caramelised. Here, spicy roasted parsnips are tumbled with nutty whole grains, raisins and a scattering of walnuts to create a dish with lots of satisfying textures. I like to add some crisp leaves for contrast, too. 150g pearl barley, pearled

spelt or whole spelt grain

500g parsnips

2 Tbsp curry paste

3 Tbsp olive or rapeseed oil

50g walnuts, roughly chopped

75g raisins a bunch of leaves, such as watercress,

rocket or flatleaf parsley juice of 1⁄2 orange or lemon sea salt and black pepper

Method

Soak the pearl barley or spelt in cold water for anything from 20 minutes to a couple of hours then drain and rinse well. Put the grain into a saucepan, cover with plenty of cold water and bring to the boil.

Reduce the heat and simmer until tender. This will take about 2025 minutes for spelt, more like 3540 minutes for barley. Drain.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 190degC . Peel the parsnips and trim the base and tip from each. Cut each parsnip in half lengthways then cut each half from top to bottom into long batons, no more than 2cm at the thick end. Don’t worry if they are a bit wobbly and uneven — this all adds to their charm!

Put the curry paste and 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large bowl and mix together. Add the parsnips with a pinch of salt and a twist of pepper and toss the parsnips in the curry spice so they are all coated — you may find a pastry brush helpful for this.

Scatter the parsnips in a large, shallow roasting tray. Roast for about 40 minutes, stirring once, until starting to caramelise. Add the chopped walnuts, raisins and cooked spelt or barley to the roasting tray, stir everything together and return to the oven for 5 minutes.

Remove from the oven and let cool slightly for 5 minutes then toss with the leaves and transfer to a platter or individual plates. Squeeze over a little citrus juice and trickle over a touch more olive oil before serving.