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Mashed Turnips
Wash, pare and cut into quarters twelve good-sized turnips. Throw them into a kettle of boiling water and boil until tender, about thirty minutes. When done, drain in a colander, pressing lightly to squeeze out all the water. Mash fine, add a tablespoonful of butter, a teaspoonful of salt and a seasoning of pepper. Serve very hot.
A plain treatment that succeeds or fails on one thing: how much water you get out of the turnips before mashing.
- Drain hardTurnips hold far more water than potatoes, and a light press in the colander is not enough. After draining, return them to the dry hot pan over low heat for a minute or two and let the steam go off, or the mash will be soupy.
- Which turnip"Good-sized turnips" is unspecified, but in an American book of this kind it most likely means white or purple-top turnips rather than swedes (rutabaga). Twelve would come to something in the region of 4 lb, enough for a large table. Rutabaga works but is sweeter and denser, and will want longer boiling.
- Cut for even cookingQuarters of a large turnip cook unevenly; cut anything over 3 inches across into eighths or rough 1 1/2-inch chunks so the centres are done when the edges are.
- Salt the waterThe recipe salts only at the end. Salting the boiling water seasons the flesh through and keeps the finished mash from tasting flat and watery.
- TimingThirty minutes is a reasonable upper limit for large pieces; test with a knife tip at 20. Overcooked turnip collapses and releases still more liquid.
- Butter and beyondA single tablespoon for 4 lb of turnip is sparing by current taste. Two to three tablespoons, or an equal-parts mash with boiled potato, gives a smoother body without extra water.
- Serve very hotThe recipe insists on it. Warm the serving dish and take the mash straight to the table.
Turnips were one of the cheapest and most reliably stored roots in the northern kitchen garden, keeping in a cellar or clamp through the winter long before year-round produce shipping, and mashed-turnip recipes are a common enough sight in 19th-century American and British cookery books, usually without much said about them. The vegetable's reputation suffered by association with animal feed — turnips were a mainstay of the field rotations that transformed English agriculture in the 18th century — which may go some way toward explaining the short, unadorned instructions. The pairing with butter, salt and pepper and nothing else is often said to reflect a habit of serving vegetables plainly as a side to a roast, with any real seasoning coming from the meat and its gravy.