Turnips are a funny one. On the one hand, they can be very trendy and often appear on modern restaurant menus in various formats: fermented, pickled or floating delicately in a broth. On the other hand, they can be completely written off as an old-fashioned vegetable, often grey, soggy and devoid of flavour. Or worse still, a vegetable only really suitable to feed to livestock. This sketchy reputation is perhaps the reason why turnips are still very cheap – a happy bonus!
I suppose what many restaurants have cottoned onto is that turnips are delicious and versatile. I’d like to turn people’s attention to this fact. Turnips have quite a singular flavour – both bitter and sweet at the same time, having the ability to absorb other rich flavours on the plate and simultaneously cut through them. Turnip leaves are sadly not often left attached to the turnips in supermarkets but if you’re able to get hold of some, they have a deep green and bitter flavour.
Although turnips are having some success at getting onto restaurant menus, they are often still very much components of a recipe as opposed to being centre-stage. I’ve chosen three recipes that cast turnips as the lead role and also highlight how differently they can be used.
