The Carrot Family: Carrots, Parsnips, and Others

Root vegetables in the carrot family share the family habit of containing distinctive aromatic molecules, so they’re often used to lend complexity to stocks, stews, soups, and other preparations. Carrots and parsnips contain less starch than potatoes and are notably sweet; they may be 5% sugars, a mixture of sucrose, glucose, and fructose. Carrots have found their way into cakes and sugar preserves in the West, are shredded and sweetened for rice dishes in Iran, and in India are cooked down in milk to make a vegetable kind of fudge (halwa).