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Fried Turnips
Boil 3 or 4 turnips till they are three parts cooked. Take them up, drain them, cut them into slices, and fry them in hot fat till they are lightly browned and quite tender. Drain them, and serve with fried or boiled cutlets. Or peel them and cut them into very thin slices. Let them lie in cold water for an hour, and drain them. Dissolve a slice of butter in a stewpan, and in this dissolve 1 tablespoonful of chopped onion for five minutes. Put in the slices of turnip, sprinkle a little pepper and salt over, and let them steam till they are soft. A spoonful or two of water may be added if there is any fear that they will burn.
Two separate methods sit in one entry: a parboil-then-fry version and a slow butter-steam. Both hinge on getting the water out of the turnip before it can stew itself grey.
- Which turnipThe recipe does not say, but this most likely means white turnips rather than swedes. Smaller roots are generally the better choice; large turnips can be woody and strong-flavoured.
- "Three parts cooked"About three-quarters done; the turnips are boiled whole here and sliced afterwards, so go by feel, until a knife meets slight resistance at the centre. Timing varies a good deal with size. Fully soft turnips collapse in the pan.
- Dry before fryingThe step that decides the dish. Drain the parboiled slices and leave them to steam dry in the colander for a few minutes, or blot them, or the fat will spit and the slices will braise rather than brown.
- "Hot fat"The recipe specifies only 'hot fat'; dripping or lard would have been the usual household choice, and clarified butter or a neutral oil serves. Fry shallow, in a single layer, with room between the slices.
- "A slice of butter"An old shorthand for a piece cut off the block, near enough 1 to 1.5 oz (2-3 tablespoons) for three or four turnips.
- "Dissolve the onion"The verb is loose here; it means soften the chopped onion in the butter without colouring it. Keep the heat low for the full five minutes.
- The hour in cold waterSoaking thin raw slices crisps them and may draw out some of the sharp, mustardy flavour of a strong winter turnip. The recipe gives it as a step rather than an option.
- Steaming time and panThin slices in a covered pan take 15-20 minutes over low heat. A heavy pan and a tight lid make the added water unnecessary.
- YieldThree or four turnips will serve about four as a side dish, depending on their size. The "cutlets" of the original most likely means lamb or veal chops.
Turnips were the cheap winter root of the British kitchen long before the potato displaced them, valued because they kept in a clamp or cellar for months and grew on poor ground. That reliability also gave them a reputation as poor-man's food, and Victorian and Edwardian cookery writers spent a good deal of effort proposing ways to make them interesting: frying, glazing, mashing with cream, or hiding them under a white sauce. Both methods here are aimed at the same problem, the wateriness and slight bitterness of a boiled turnip, and both solve it with fat and browning rather than by adding much else. Pairing them with cutlets follows the older English convention that root vegetables belonged with mutton and lamb, a habit still visible in the standard turnip-and-swede accompaniment to roast meat.