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Turnips, Large, Stuffed
Boil whole four or five large turnips. Take them up, drain them, cut a slice from the top, and scoop out the middle. Beat the pulp which has been taken out with a little butter, flour, pepper, salt, and cream, and add the yolk of an egg. Fill the empty spaces with the mixture, put the tops on again, and brush the turnips over with beaten egg. Brown them in a brisk oven, or before the fire, and serve very hot. Time to boil, from three-quarters of an hour to an hour and a half. Probable cost, 1s. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A sound Victorian vegetable dish that survives modernisation with very little intervention. The main adjustments are oven temperature, boiling time, and keeping the shells from collapsing.
- The hinge: don't overboilThe turnips must stay firm enough to hollow out and hold their shape through a second cooking. Simmer until a skewer meets slight resistance at the centre, then stop; a fully soft turnip will tear as you scoop it.
- Realistic timingThree-quarters of an hour to an hour and a half assumes very large old winter turnips or swedes. Supermarket turnips of 8-10 oz each will be ready in 25-35 minutes; check from 20 minutes.
- "A brisk oven"Conventionally taken as somewhere around 400-450F (200-230C). The turnips are already cooked; the oven is only there to set the egg glaze and colour the tops, which takes roughly 10-15 minutes.
- "Or before the fire"The alternative was propping the dish in front of an open range to brown by radiant heat. The modern equivalent is a grill or broiler about 6 inches from the element, watched constantly, as the egg wash colours fast.
- Which turnipA "large turnip" here may be a big winter turnip, and swede (rutabaga) can be substituted. Swede is sweeter and denser and gives a better-flavoured filling; white turnips are milder and more watery.
- Drain the pulpBoiled turnip holds a great deal of water. Press the scooped-out flesh in a sieve or dry it briefly in a pan over heat before beating in the butter, flour and cream, or the filling will be loose and will weep in the oven.
- Quantities left unstatedNo amounts are given for butter, flour or cream. For the pulp of five large turnips, start with about 2 oz butter, a tablespoon of flour and 3-4 tablespoons of cream, and adjust to a mixture that mounds on a spoon.
- Yield and servingFour or five as a side dish, one turnip each. They must go to the table hot, as the filling stiffens noticeably as it cools.
Stuffed vegetables of this kind belong to a long English tradition of turning a plain root into something fit for the middle of the table, and the turnip was cheap and stored all winter. The "probable cost, 1s" reflects the book's habit of costing dishes for households running to a budget. The technique of scooping, enriching the pulp with butter, cream and egg yolk, and returning it to its own shell was applied to other vegetables in the period, such as potatoes and marrows. Turnips carried a certain social stigma as cattle fodder and famine food, which may be part of why so many nineteenth-century books work to dress them up.