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Pork and Turnips
Boil the turnips until done; mash well; season with salt and pepper, have ready some pork gravy; mix it with the turnips and place it inside the oven a few minutes . Serve hot.
A thrifty side dish that turns the roasting pan into the seasoning. The printed text repeats a line — a compositor's error — and the instruction is simply to fold pork gravy into mashed turnip and warm it through.
- Which turnipIn American cookbooks "turnip" usually means the white or purple-top turnip, though rutabaga (swede) was often sold under the same name. Rutabaga is sweeter and yellow-fleshed and mashes drier; either works, but they taste noticeably different.
- Pork gravyMost likely the pan juices from a roast or from fried chops, with their fat, rather than a separately thickened sauce, though a thickened pork gravy is also possible. Skim off some of the fat if there is a lot of it — turnip absorbs grease readily and the dish turns heavy.
- Drain hardThe hinge of the recipe. Boiled turnip holds a great deal of water; drain it, then return it to the dry pan over low heat for a minute or two before mashing, or the gravy will thin into soup.
- Boiling timePeeled and cut into 1-inch pieces, turnip is generally tender in 15–20 minutes, rutabaga in 25–30. Some older cookbooks call for much longer boiling, and prolonged cooking is part of why the vegetable acquired a reputation for a sulphurous smell.
- OvenNo temperature is given, and none is needed — the dish is already cooked. As a modern suggestion, about 10 minutes in a moderate oven (350°F) will heat it through; hotter and a little longer will give a lightly browned top.
- SeasoningSalt, pepper and gravy are all the original offers. Turnip takes well to a grating of nutmeg or a spoonful of butter, and a little of the pork's own fat mashed in does more than extra salt.
- YieldThe recipe specifies no quantity; about 2 lb of turnip would give roughly four servings as a side. Expect the mash to lose some bulk once drained and pressed.
Turnips were the cheap winter root of the northern kitchen garden, stored in cellars and clamps and eaten from autumn through spring, and their long-standing pairing with pork is as much economics as taste: both were what a small farm had in quantity after the autumn slaughter. The fat of the pig and the slight bitterness of the root balance each other, a logic repeated in similar pairings across Europe. The method is frugal — nothing is bought for it. The gravy left in the roasting pan, which a later cook might pour away, is treated as an ingredient in its own right, and the whole dish exists to make a plain boiled vegetable worth eating a second night.