Heading into the Christmas season I thought I'd come across a "Nativity" recipe and then realized it said "Navets Persilles" (Parslied Turnips). Since I'd already bought the ingredients I thought I should cook it anyway. Glad I did since this quick and simple recipe did not disappoint. Not only that, but I might have learned few things along the way.
This adventure started in the grocery store with two of my granddaughters. As we wandered through the produce aisle, we were having fun discussing what each of the various vegetable were that they hadn't seen (or noticed) before. Celery root, parsnips, shallots, Boston lettuce, rutabagas, jicama, turnips. Wait, what do you mean there are no turnips in the store? Search and search we did (no, of course I didn't ask for help) but in spite of finding lots of goodies, we had no luck locating any lowly turnips. Being the culinary master that I have become, however, I put on my thinking cap and deduced that rutabagas are very close to turnips. As a matter of fact, although the rutabagas are a bit of a yellowish tint they do have the same purplish band around he top. How much different could a braised turnip be from a braised parsnip? They're both round, crunchy, and like to be cooked. Rutabagas it was.
Here's the funny part, when I entered the rutabaga information into the produce scale/printer it came up as "Rutabaga Turnips." All that wandering around searching for turnips, sure enough, I'd stumbled across them at the beginning of the vegetable hunt and didn't even know it! Well, at least a close enough cousin that for this recipe I'm using Rutabaga Turnips and for simplicity will just be referring to them as turnips in this post. Case closed,
The actual preparation of this is very simple. First, about 2 lbs of turnips were peeled and cut into quarters or eighths, depending on the size of each turnip. Then they were blanched in a large pot of salted boiling water for about three minutes. Have you noticed the trend with the French method of cooking vegetables? They are almost always blanched prior to the final cooking technique. Blanche and I are starting to get along quite will lately and she turns out to be a pretty big help around the kitchen.
After draining them, the turnips were placed in a saucepan with two tablespoons of butter and about 1 1/2 cups of beef or chicken broth (water would work too). I adjusted the amount of liquid so that the turnips are barely covered. A little salt and pepper were added, the lid popped onto the pan, and then the turnips were allowed to boil for 20-30 minutes until tender but not mushy. I'd apparently used a bit too much liquid so I took the lid off for the final five minutes or so to let most of the remaining liquid boil off.
The turnips could have been served immediately at this point as "Navets A L'Etuvee" (Turnips Braised in Butter) or the next step could be done to fancy them up a bit more. The final step could be done immediately after braising the turnips or they could be cooked in advance and then finished with the final step a bit later. I proceeded with the final step needed about 20 minutes after braising the turnips to transform the braised turnips into "Navets Persilles" (Parslied Turnips). Don't blink, this happened fast: Two tablespoons of butter were softened and added to the braised turnips. Two tablespoons of minced parsley (I ran out of fresh parsley so I cheated a bit and used dried parsley flakes -- sorry Julia) were sprinkled over the turnips. A couple of drops of lemon juice were added and then everything was then gently tossed until the turnips were coated evenly.
The parsley and butter added at the end did add a nice touch to the appearance and enhanced the flavor too. Once placed in a serving dish the turnips were ready to be photographed and, most importantly, eaten! I'm thinking this technique would work nicely with many different firm root vegetables as well. Who knows, I may be brave one of these days and try it on something Julia didn't write about. I hope you will enjoy these as much as we did.
Bon Appetit!
Turnips. Yummy!