Thursday, April 10, 2014

Roasted purple top turnips

If you've been reading my other posts, you'll know that I'm not a fan of purple top turnips.  They are edible as part of a mixture of veggies pickled with the Momofuku vinegar pickle recipe, as the pickling takes away the sharpness of the turnips, but there are only so many pickles that a person can eat.  And, as you can see in this week's box photo, the purple top turnips keep coming (and mutating, apparently, as this week's turnip was almost as large as the loaf of bread that we got).

Over the weekend, I found a recipe for roasting turnips.  Last night, I tried it.
I started with 2 pounds of turnips and some shallots, as well as 10-12 cloves of garlic.  I peeled and chopped the turnips, then took the paper skin off the garlic cloves and shallots.  I also added some fresh rosemary, as I had some in the fridge that had been purchased by our guest for a soup that she made for us.
Drizzle on olive oil, and season with salt and pepper.
Toss to coat the turnips with the olive oil, salt, and pepper.
I started roasting them in a 325 degree oven, as I was also making the slow roasted carrots in cherry sauce.  Here they are after a half hour.
At 45 minutes, I increased the temperature of the oven to 400, as I was also making the parsnip biscuits.  I put the turnips on the bottom shelf to brown and caramelize a bit.  The biscuits cooked for 15 minutes.  I stirred the turnips once during that time.
Verdict: They're still turnips.  I thought this preparation was one of the better ones that I've tried for the turnips, but the husband did not like them at all.  I had been hoping that this recipe would be a hit, as I still have many turnips in the fridge.  (Note to Siena Farms: Please, no more purple top turnips in my box, at least until the fall.)

[Update: Had the leftovers cold for lunch.  I think I prefer them this way.]

3 comments:

  1. I made these a long time ago (sorry to rub it in, but we haven't gotten any turnips recently so I'd forgotten about this recipe!):
    http://leora.thesane.net/2010/07/tasty-turnip-latkes/
    I bet you could also do a potato/turnip mixture if you wanted to disguise the turnip taste even more, though I don't remember it being very strong in these.

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  2. Also, this one looks....intriguing? Maybe really good and maybe kind of like baby food? I'm on the fence, but if you try it let me know:
    http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2008/09/turnip-apple-and-jerusalem-artichoke-soup-recipe.html?ref=search

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  3. Interesting. I had been wondering if the turnips would work in the daikon cake recipe, and this latke recipe is similar. The only thing is that the turnips have more liquid, but I suppose I could drain them for longer that I would the grated daikon.

    And yes, it's not nice to point out that you're in a warmer climate and getting a different set of vegetables. But it was in the 60s today here. Perhaps there's hope for spring (and summer) veggies yet!

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