Home › Vegetables › Stewed Turnips a la Francaise
Stewed Turnips a la Francaise
Peel and wash half a dozen turnips, and boil them in salted water till tender. Take them up, drain them, and in the water in which they have been boiled simmer gently 1 cupful of bread crumbs for five or six minutes. Wash the turnips, and put them into another saucepan with the boiled bread and a little butter and pepper. Stir over a gentle fire till they are quite hot, and mix with them the yolk of an egg beaten up with 2 tablespoonfuls of milk. Let them stew gently a minute or two longer, and serve very hot. Turnips prepared thus are very good as an accompaniment to boiled mutton, veal, or poultry. Time, three-quarters of an hour to an hour and a half to boil the turnips.
A turnip purée thickened with bread and enriched with egg yolk, in the older French style where breadcrumbs rather than cream do the binding work. It comes together quickly once the turnips are soft.
- The hinge: mash, don't rinseAfter the turnips are drained they are meant to be mashed or roughly crushed before going back into the pan with the bread. Rinsing boiled turnips at this stage would only waterlog them.
- Egg yolk off the boilOnce the yolk and milk go in, keep the pan below a simmer and stir constantly. A minute or two is genuinely all it needs; any harder heat and the yolk sets into threads through the purée.
- Bread crumbsThis means soft crumbs torn from a stale white loaf, not dry commercial crumbs. Dry crumbs will absorb far more liquid and give a pasty result; use about a cup of fresh crumbs, loosely packed.
- Cooking timeThree-quarters of an hour to an hour and a half assumes large winter turnips or swedes cooked whole. Modern turnips cut into 1-inch pieces are tender in 15 to 20 minutes; test with a knife rather than the clock.
- Draining mattersTurnips hold a great deal of water. Let them steam dry in the colander for a few minutes before mashing, or the finished dish will slacken.
- SeasoningThe turnips are boiled in salted water, but only pepper and a little butter are specified for the finished dish. Turnips take salt well, so taste before serving, and a grating of nutmeg is in keeping with the period.
- YieldSix turnips serves four to six as a side dish, depending on their size.