Giving turnips a workout in our kitchens

Turnips are one of the stars of the Winter Bounty greenhouse--easy to grow and easy to eat

A new year’s New York Times headline advises, “Give Turnips a Second Chance.” Those of us involved with the Winter Bounty greenhouse don’t need to; they are one of our star crops–easy to grow and easy to eat.

Last fall, we planted a small bed of Hakurei turnips, a small variety with a smooth, thin, white skin. They survived the winter temperatures easily, but we ate them up too quickly.

These little turnips don’t even need to be cooked; they can be sliced into salads or eaten straight out of the garden. I particularly like a salad of raw sliced Hakurei turnips with apricots and toasted nuts from Farmer John’s Cookbook: The Real Dirt on Vegetables. The turnip greens are pureed with other ingredients for a wonderful Green Goddess dressing.

The pretty little Hakurei turnips don't even need to be cooked.

The greens are also delicious sautéed, sometimes with the small turnips still attached.

This year, we expanded the space devoted to root vegetables and planted the traditional purple-topped turnips in addition to the hakureis. During the rains following Hurricane Irene, the soil surrounding the young seedlings eroded, and as a result, all of the turnips appear to be growing above ground. As a result, the skins are a bit leathery and brown, but they are still delicious.

The Times article was timely not because we need to be convinced to like turnips but because we were looking for some fresh ways of cooking with them. Last weekend, Logan made the Couscous with Turnips and Sweet Potatoes. In addition to the large purple turnips, she made use of carrots, leeks, and cilantro from the greenhouse, and sweet potatoes and onions from her own backyard garden. The only storebought ingredients were the spices, the chickpeas, and the couscous. She omitted the harissa, because all of the ingredients were already in the stew (cayenne pepper, caraway, and coriander), and she reports it was still plenty spicy. And delicious.

I had planned to make the Rice Noodle and Chicken Stir-Fry with the same purple-top turnips, julienned as the recipe instructs. But I came home from a work session with a couple dozen very small Hakurei turnips that I’d planned to sauté with the greens on as a side dish. When a few days went by and the turnips were still sitting on my counter, I decided to use them in the stir-fry instead of the larger ones. I just sliced them in half if they were larger than a marble. The carrots in the stir-fry also came from the greenhouse, and I added some diced red bell pepper (storebought) that I wanted to use up.

A third recipe from the New York Times piece appealed to my inner Irishwoman: a mash of turnips and potatoes with turnip greens that is supposedly inspired by the Irish dish Colcannon: mashed potatoes with kale or cabbage. (No matter that I’d never tasted this delicacy.) Potatoes, turnips, and turnip greens were mashed together with some sauteed leeks and bound together with a bit of of half-and-half. The ingredients melded into a superb midweek comfort food that was delicious as a side to some sliced sausage. The only thing I’d do differently is add some garlic.

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