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Puree of Turnips
Wash and cook about one dozen turnips, cutting them into small pieces, first drain them on a clean napkin, then put into a stewpan with two pieces of butter the size of a small egg, salt, and a pinch of sugar; they should stew very slowly, turning them occasionally, being very careful that they do not change their color. When very nearly cooked add a very small cupful of Bechamel sauce; stir the purée while on the fire, and reduce to a thick consistency; lastly, add a teacup of rich cream, reduce the purée still more, then pass through a fine sieve, put into a small stewpan, and just before using heat it, adding a small spoonful of butter, and serve.
A French-style vegetable purée built by slow butter-stewing rather than boiling, which is why it tastes of turnip rather than water. The measurements are casual even by 1900 standards, so read them as proportions.
- How many turnipsThe recipe does not say what size, but a dozen probably means small young turnips, which would come to something like 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 lb trimmed. Large storage turnips or swedes will be coarser and stronger; peel them thickly and expect a more pungent result.
- Butter the size of a small eggAbout 2 oz, so two pieces is roughly 4 oz (1 stick) for the stewing, plus a further tablespoon to finish. That is a generous amount and it is doing the cooking, not just seasoning.
- Teacup and small cupfulNeither measure was standardised; a teacup is usually reckoned somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 cup, and "a very small cupful" is anyone's guess -- perhaps 1/2 cup. Treat the Bechamel and cream as adjustments to texture rather than fixed quantities.
- The instruction that matters"Being very careful that they do not change their color" is the whole technique. Keep the heat low so the turnips sweat in butter without taking any browning; colour here means browning, which turns the pur he wrong way.
- Drain them dryThe napkin is not fussiness. Turnips hold a lot of water, and wet pieces will steam and stew rather than absorb the butter, leaving you reducing for far longer at the end.
- BechamelA plain white sauce of equal butter and flour cooked out and let down with milk. It is here as a binder, helping the pur"e hold together rather than loosen as it stands.
- The sieveA fine drum sieve worked with a wooden spoon gives the smoothest texture; a food mill or potato ricer is faster, though a little coarser. A blender or food processor will work, but can pull the pur"e slack if overrun.
- Yield and servingProbably serves four to six as a side. It suits roast or braised meat, and can be made ahead and reheated gently with the final butter stirred in off the boil -- the recipe's own "just before using heat it" implies as much.
Purées of root vegetables like this belong to the French professional repertoire that American cookbooks were busy borrowing, when a well-run household kitchen aspired to restaurant technique. Turnips (navets) were far more central to European cooking then than now, both as winter keepers and as the classic companion to fatty roast meats, and putting them through a fine sieve with butter, Bechamel and cream was one way of raising a cheap field crop to something fit for a dinner course. The Bechamel itself is generally traced to Louis de Béchameil, a steward in the household of Louis XIV, though the attribution is traditional rather than documented and the sauce as cooks now make it was codified much later. What dates this recipe most clearly is its indifference to exact measurement: pieces of butter the size of an egg and "a very small cupful" assume a cook who has made purées before and is being reminded of a method, not taught one.