Parsnip, butter bean and blackberry traybake

This is a tray full of all that is good about autumn: honey and mustard roast parsnips, cold-weather herbs, butter beans that char and crisp, and blackberries that burst and dye the pale parsnips a deep purple in the heat of the oven. It’s a painting of a dish. I finish it off with some buttery toasted rye flakes and hazelnuts. Serve this in the tray in the middle of the table for maximum effect.

SERVES 4–6
750g parsnips, peeled
a small bunch of thyme
6 bay leaves
2 tablespoons wholegrain mustard
2 tablespoons cider vinegar 2 tablespoons runny honey olive oil
1 x 400g tin of butter beans, drained (or 250g home- cooked, see page 461)
200g blackberries
30g butter or olive oil
50g rye flakes or rolled oats
25g hazelnuts, toasted and roughly chopped

TO SERVE
cooked greens dressed with lemon and olive oil

Preheat your oven to 200oC/180oC fan/gas 6. Cut your parsnips into halves and quarters and tumble them into your largest roasting tray. Add a good pinch of salt and pepper and most of the thyme and bay. Mix the mustard, vinegar, honey and 3 tablespoons of oil and pour half of it over the parsnips, saving the other half for later. Toss everything together to coat each parsnip well, then roast in the hot oven for 25 minutes, until the parsnips are beginning to turn golden.

Once the parsnips have had their time, take them out of the oven, add the beans and blackberries and gently turn the parsnips over to mix them in. Roast for another 20 minutes.
While this cooks, heat the butter in a frying pan with the remaining thyme and add the rye flakes, chopped hazelnuts and a good pinch of salt. Move them around in the pan until the flakes are golden and they smell buttery and toasty, then transfer to a bowl.

The bake is ready when the blackberries have burst and painted the golden parsnips, and the beans have crisped and popped out of their skins a little. Pour the rest of the mustard and honey dressing over the tray and turn everything over in it to coat each parsnip and bean. Sprinkle the rye and hazelnuts over the top and serve in the middle of the table with your greens.