Turnips

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late spring and again in the fall

A turnip root can keep for weeks. And look at the greens storage info for what to do with the tops. These are roots filled with moisture so you want to store them refrigerated and lightly covered so they don’t begin to shrivel and wilt. Storage turnips will keep for months – and if we all had root cellars, we could keep our turnips in damp sand for months, too. But lacking one of those handy root cellars, refrigerate yours and try to use them up in a week or two.

NOTE: we see two types of turnips in our CSA:  the purple top traditional turnips, and the smaller, rounder, white hakurai turnips. The latter are sometimes referred to as salad turnips, being mild and tender enough to eat raw. They don’t have the keeping power of their purple top cousins.

(2023) Pickled Turnip and Beet

From Yotam Ottolenghi’s cookbook Jerusalem, who says “this is a cinch to make but must be prepared over two days. It is sharp and not too complex in flavor, perfect for serving with unctuous meats, a tangine, or hummus.”

(2020) Aluma Farm’s Veggie Pickles

Love that the Aluma Farm recipe helps you understand how much brine to make, depending on how many pickles you’re putting up. Really helpful for those of us pickling on the fly.

(2018) Autumn Vegetable Potage

I’ve shared this recipe before but it’s worth repeating. Save it for when next week’s box when there will surely be a bundle of greens of some sort.

Demonstrated by Virginia Willis at the Peachtree Road Farmers Market. As she says, feel free to substitute with what’s in season and in your box. And she recommends the two pots specified here to keep the greens crisp..

(2017) Shaved Turnip and Radish Salad

If you’re not going to make turnip cakes, maybe you’ll want to try this recipe adapted from “My New Roots: Inspired Plant-Based Recipes for Every Season” by Sarah Britton. You could roast sweet potato cubes, or apple cubes!, to add to this salad. Yum.

(2017) Roasted Turnips with Caraway

From chef Hugh Acheson, a simple way to deal with your turnips. I just thought the caraway seeds were interesting – elevates this beyond the simple roasted veg.

(2017) Root Vegetable Soup

I’ve been using my turnips in soups this month. Try this one from Prevention magazine. Put in as many turnips and carrots as you like.

(2017) Braised Turnips

This recipe from Southern Living was designed for hakurei turnips, but you can that purple-top turnip into bite-size chunks and treat it the same way.

(2017) Pickled Hakurei Turnips

First, those turnips. Pickle them. Yes, everybody’s pickling and maybe you’re over it, but this nice recipe was demonstrated by Nick Leahy of Saltyard at the Peachtree Road Farmers Market and it’s really lovely. You could pickle your radishes, too. I love these slices in sandwiches. Crazy about them. When hakurei turnips get this big, that’s a perfect use.

Or just braise them in a little broth, maybe with some soy sauce? Ian Winslade of Morningside Kitchen did a demo doing that at the Morningside market last year. They were yummy. Add a little honey if the turnips seem at all bitter to you.

Pan Roasted Turnips and Radishes

Seth Freedman, who once did demos at the East Atlanta Village Farmers Market but is now with PeachDish, created this recipe as a market demo. He was using hareuki turnips, the sweet little white ones that are similar in size to radishes, but you can take today’s turnip and cut it into pieces about the size of the radishes in the box. It’s a “recipe” that couldn’t be simpler, but a nice reminder that turnips and radishes go well together.

Turnips in Coconut and Mustard Seed Curry

Use that turnip, one of those peppers and a tomato in this curry that comes from “Flavor First: An Indian Chef’s Culinary Journey” by Vikas Khanna. If you don’t have the black mustard seeds, it’s ok. Just leave them out. (And no, I wouldn’t go to the trouble of peeling my tomato. But you can!)

Spring Garden Hodgepodge

This recipe, adapted from “Vegetable Literacy” by Deborah Madison, is the perfect way to use so many of the bits in the box this week.

Notes on Turnips and Greens

Hakurei turnips as big as the ones in today’s box are probably too grown up for eating raw. I can’t swear to that – haven’t tried them – but when I saw them, I decided these would be good candidates for a long, slow simmer. If you want juicy turnips and greens, bring about 2 cups of water to a boil, add a little salt and some sugar, some bacon fat if you’re into that, and bring the mixture to a boil. After 5 minutes, reduce heat and add the diced turnip roots and chopped greens. Cover and simmer for as long as you like. I’m running a recipe in the paper this January that calls for cooking them for 3 1/2 hours. Yes, 3 1/2 hours. But I tell you, they are delicious, cooked to succulence. You can see why that style of cooking roots and greens has persisted for years.

Are you a juicer? I’ve just (finally!) become a fan of juiced greens. Those collards, kale, beet and turnip greens? This week they’re going in the juicer with some apples. My new favorite way to get some of those delicious K vitamins.

Arabic Pickled Turnips

As promised – pickles. These are pickles I grew up eating, turnip pickles dyed fuchsia with the addition of a beet. Perfect for this box – one small beet, all your turnips and a clove of that fresh garlic. This recipe actually comes by way of ABC. Diane Sawyer made a trip to Syria and brought back turnip pickles – the folks on “The Chew” provided a recipe to make these stateside.

Ideas for Fall Produce

Each week I put together a collection of recipe ideas for what’s arrived in our beautiful Riverview boxes, but you know, sometimes you just don’t have the time or inclination to follow a recipe. Or maybe you’re in a situation where you don’t have the equipment or ingredients to do anything relatively elaborate. This weekend Read More…

Steamed Tokyo Turnips Nested in Their Greens

You may have seen a comment on Riverview’s Facebook page about a recipe in the AJC a few weeks ago for hareuki turnips. That’s from my In Season column, and here it is for you. Couldn’t be easier. I noted in my column that all over Atlanta farmers markets, these turnips are called hakurei, but it seems that for much of the rest of the world they go by the name of Tokyo-type.

Kohlrabi and Turnip Slaw

I mentioned before that I’ve become a big fan of kohlrabi in slaw. Here’s a recipe demonstrated at the Peachtree Road Farmers Market by Jason Paolini of Restaurant Eugene and Holeman & Finch. No crème fraiche? You could use sour cream or yogurt or, yes, even mayonnaise. No turnips? Just leave them out, maybe adding another carrot.

Vegetable Pot Pie

The folks at Moore Farms and Friends offer an alternative to the traditional CSA and in their weekly e-newsletter, they included this recipe. I thought it was a great explanation of how interesting recipes and dishes get developed. Enjoy it with any of the roots in today’s box. This is copied straight from Laurie’s email.