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Turnip-Tops
Turnip-tops are frequently used as greens. When freshly cut they are very good, and they have a slightly bitter taste which recommends them to many. Trim off the decayed leaves and stems, and wash the greens in several waters. Drain them, and throw them into a saucepan with plenty of boiling water slightly salted. Keep the saucepan uncovered, and let them boil quickly till they are quite tender. When done enough, put them into a colander, and squeeze the water gently from them. Turn them into a hot vegetable-dish, pepper them lightly, and spread a little butter on them; cut the surface across both ways with a knife, and serve. If any of these greens are left, they may be served up again after being finely chopped and heated in a saucepan with butter and salt. Time to boil, from fifteen to twenty minutes. Probable cost--generally very cheap--1d. or 2d. per pound. Sufficient, two pounds for three or four persons.
A straightforward boiled green, and the method still works — the only things worth adjusting are the boiling time and the assumption that turnip tops are on every greengrocer's shelf.
- Finding the greensTurnip tops are the leafy shoots of the turnip plant, sold in the American South as turnip greens; the Italian cime di rapa, or broccoli rabe, is a close relative grown for its shoots and cooks much the same way. Young leaves from a bunch of topped turnips work equally well; the flavour is mustardy and faintly bitter, which is the point.
- Fifteen to twenty minutes is longThat timing suits the coarse, mature tops of a Victorian kitchen garden. Tender modern bunches are done in four to eight minutes in a large pot of boiling salted water — taste a leaf rather than watching the clock.
- Why the lid stays offCooking uncovered lets the sulphurous compounds escape rather than condensing back into the pot, which keeps both the colour and the flavour brighter. Plenty of water, kept at a hard boil, does the same job.
- Squeeze gently, not dryGreens hold a surprising amount of water and will flood the serving dish, but pressing hard turns them to pulp. Press with the back of a spoon in the colander until dripping stops.
- Cutting the surfaceScoring the drained mass across both ways, as the recipe directs, divides the greens into neat portions at table. Purely presentational, and easily skipped.
- SeasoningButter, salt and pepper are the whole dressing here. A splash of cider vinegar or a squeeze of lemon at the table balances the bitterness, though the recipe itself calls for neither.
- Yield and leftoversTwo pounds of raw greens serves three or four, cooking down to very little. The reheat suggested at the end — chopped fine and warmed in butter and salt — is a straightforward way to use what is left.
Turnip tops belong to the long English tradition of "greens" — whatever leaf the garden offered, boiled hard and buttered — and they were valued in spring, when the overwintered roots sent up fresh shoots before anything else was ready. Cassell's notes the cost at a penny or twopence a pound, which places them firmly among the foods of the labouring household; a vegetable that came free with the turnips was hard to beat. The slight bitterness the entry mentions as recommending them "to many" is the same quality that keeps the plant in favour around the Mediterranean, where cime di rapa is fried with garlic and chilli and served with pasta, and in the American South, where turnip greens are simmered with pork. That a dictionary of cookery aimed at middle-class English kitchens bothered to include them at all reflects the period's practical thrift: nothing edible from the kitchen garden went to the pigs if a cook could help it.