“Root vegetables for the December issue of a food magazine? You’re kidding, right?” my friend asked. December is the season for these winter roots, but can they deliver a great taste suitable for a holiday meal? Absolutely. No question.
Still, I felt like someone trying to set up blind dates for three homely sisters when I invited friends to my recipe tasting lunch. I talked it up. The turnip – smart, with a sassy attitude. The rutabaga – great personality, gets along with everyone. The parsnip – quiet, reserved and ladylike. One guest declined. “My tastes have not matured to include turnips,” she said. Another told me he was prepared to take the good with the bad when he accepted my invitation.
For the main dish at our lunch, I chose a Crock-Pot beef stew with lots of onion, two Yukon gold potatoes, six turnips and a simple red-wine reduction. Creamed turnips, a savory cobbler and twice-baked potatoes stuffed with a parsnip soufflé rounded out the menu.
Turnips provided an interesting departure from a traditional stew, adding a nice bite. Savory root-vegetable cobbler won the taste test, hands down. Turnips, parsnips, butternut squash, pearl onions and rutabagas seasoned with fresh thyme baked deliciously in porcini and shiitake mushroom gravy. Parsnips, oven-roasted then caramelized with maple syrup, tasted great mashed with a little cream and butter. I could have stopped right there, but the recipe called for folding in whipped egg whites and riced potatoes to make the stuffing. Even better.
I experimented with a galette of turnips, rutabagas, onions and parsnips browned in an herbed butter. The taste was OK, but the texture was odd. Later, I made a recipe similar to potatoes Anna, adding rutabagas interspersed with Yukon gold potatoes. Talk about a wonderful dish for the holiday table.
Of the three guests at the root lunch, two accepted doggie bags, gladly. One favored the parsnip soufflé, while the other preferred the savory cobbler. The third friend thanked me for a nice lunch, but declined a second date with the sisters.
The creamed turnips met mixed reviews at our lunch. You can hardly go wrong with butter and cream, but the pungent taste of the turnips is distinctive. “Don’t give me any mushy, cooked vegetables. Especially not turnips,” said Trixy Trojan of St. Louis’ Bombshell Betties Burlesque Troupe. Trojan, who grew up with a truck-farm gardening mom, has a strong aversion to cooked turnips. “I like ’em raw.” She recommended cutting them in a half-inch dice or a matchstick julienne as a peppery extra in salads. “Add them as you would a radish or a cucumber,” she said.
I bought organic turnips, rutabaga and parsnips from Whole Foods Market and conventionally grown turnips and rutabagas from Dierbergs. The organic rutabagas lacked the waxy coating you’ll find in most groceries. The waxy coating prevents the rutabaga from dehydrating and allows it to keep longer. It comes off easily with a vegetable parer, but I didn’t like the nasty wax buildup on my parer that resulted. I preferred the organic rutabaga for taste and aesthetics. The peel, orange streaked with deep purple and green, is quite handsome. Select rutabagas with a heavy weight in relation to their size.
Every cook I asked suggested choosing traditional turnips on the small side, solid, with a purple collar around the stem end and an even white color on the root end. I liked both the turnips and parsnips from Whole Foods for their small size and crispness. Thinner than most I saw at the grocery, the Whole Foods parsnips snapped like a fresh carrot and yielded a very tender mash.
Turnips, rutabagas and parsnips are plentiful at area stores. I called a slew of farmers looking for the three, but found only locally grown turnips. Shop Thies Farm and Greenhouse on North Hanley Road for the standard purple and white variety. Or try the newer white Japanese turnips, which are smooth, nearly perfectly round and so white they look unreal; I found the taste smooth with no sharpness.
I first tasted these turnips last summer when I bought a gorgeous bunch from Claverach Farm near Eureka, Mo. Other local farmers are offering mild, flavorful turnips, as well. “The familiar turnip is the purple-topped white globe,” said Tim Hess of Silent Oaks Farm near Mount Vernon, Ill., “but in my opinion the Japanese Hakurei is far superior. It’s milder, more tender, sweeter – more of a salad turnip.” Look for these turnips at the Maplewood Winter Farmers’ Market on Dec. 22 for a tasty last-minute addition to the holiday table. I liked them creamed, raw in salads, and roasted with rutabagas, onions and butternut squash chunks.
Root vegetables for the holidays? You bet.
This article appears in Dec 1-31, 2007.