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Turnips, Glaces
Select a few fine turnips; turn, in the shape of pears, a sufficient number to cover or to fill the dish; stew them in a small quantity of broth with a little sugar, reduce the liquor to glaze. When equally covered, dish the turnips, take a spoonful of Spanish sauce to detach the glaze that remains in the stewpan, with a small piece of butter twice as big as a walnut, which work with the sauce. Season it well and pour it over the turnips.
A classic French garnish under an English title: turnips pared into pear shapes, glazed in reduced stock, and finished with a spoonful of brown sauce. The whole thing hinges on the reduction, so keep the pan under close watch once the liquid starts to thicken.
- The hinge: reducing to glazeThe broth must cook down to a syrup that clings, not a sauce that pools. Once it thickens, the sugar will catch and burn within a minute or two, so swirl the pan constantly at the end and pull it from the heat while the coating is still amber rather than brown.
- "Turn" the turnipsTurning is knife work, not a cooking step: pare each turnip down to a smooth, even shape with a small paring knife or a bird's-beak knife. Uniform size matters more than elegance, since unevenly cut pieces will not finish cooking together.
- Choosing the turnipsYoung turnips, small, firm and heavy, are the best choice. Large winter turnips can be woody and bitter at the core, and there is not enough sauce here to cover for them.
- Spanish sauceSauce espagnole, the brown mother sauce built on a brown roux, brown stock and mirepoix. A spoonful is used only to deglaze; a good reduced brown stock or a well-made demi-glace stands in for it perfectly at this quantity.
- Butter "twice as big as a walnut"A walnut of butter is roughly 1 oz (30 g), so this is about 2 oz (55 g). Work it into the deglazed sauce off the heat so it emulsifies rather than splits.
- The sugarA teaspoon or so for a pound of turnips is enough. It is there to help the glaze set and to soften the mustardy edge of the root, not to sweeten the dish.
- Broth quantity"A small quantity" suggests no more than enough to half-cover the turnips, so the liquid reduces at about the same rate the turnips soften. Too much and the turnips collapse before the glaze forms.
- Yield and servingAbout 1 lb of turnips serves four as a garnish. The instruction to cover or fill the dish indicates an accompaniment rather than a standalone vegetable dish.
Glazed turnips are a long-established garnish in the French repertoire, and shaping root vegetables into olives, barrels and pears was a mark of professional kitchen work. The instruction to detach the glaze with a spoonful of Spanish sauce reflects the Carême-descended tradition of brown sauces kept ready in large kitchens, from which a spoonful could be drawn off for any purpose. Turnips also carried an association with fatty meats — the pairing with duck survives in canard aux navets — the root's slight bitterness cutting through rich flesh.