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Turnips
Cook like carrots. After boiling in salt water 10 minutes drain, and pour fresh boiling water over them. Cook until tender, season and serve with white sauce. Cook turnips as above, when second water has been added season with fresh pieces of pork, a little sugar to soften the strong taste, cayenne and a little salt. Serve hot with corn bread sticks.
Two recipes in one paragraph: plain buttered turnips in white sauce, and a Southern-style pot of turnips cooked down with pork. The double-water method is the hinge of both.
- Why two watersThe first 10-minute boil is presumably meant to draw off the harsher-tasting compounds that make turnips strong; draining it and starting again with fresh boiling water keeps the flavor milder. The recipe treats the change of water as essential, so keep the second water at a boil when it goes on.
- Cut size and timingPeel and cut into 1-inch dice or thick half-moons. After the second water goes on, figure 12 to 20 minutes to fork-tender depending on size and age; young spring turnips are quicker, storage turnips with woody cores slower.
- "Cook like carrots"A cross-reference to the book's carrot directions; in practice it means peel, cut evenly, and boil in salted water.
- White sauceA plain milk sauce; standard proportions are 2 tablespoons butter, 2 tablespoons flour and 1 cup milk, cooked out for a couple of minutes so it does not taste of raw flour and seasoned with salt and pepper. Enough for about 1 1/2 lb of cooked turnip.
- "Fresh pieces of pork"Fresh, as opposed to salt pork or cured bacon: cubes of shoulder or belly. If you use salt pork or a smoked hock instead, hold back the added salt until the end and taste.
- Cooking the pork throughRaw pork cubes dropped into the second water need real time; give them 35 to 45 minutes at a bare simmer so the meat is cooked and tender. As written the turnips are already in the pot, so they will cook down soft; adding them partway through instead is a departure from the text but keeps them from going to mush.
- The sugarThe recipe says only 'a little', and gives its purpose as softening the strong taste rather than sweetening; add it early enough to dissolve and taste before adding more.
- Corn bread sticksBaked in a cast-iron corn-stick pan, which should be greased and preheated in the oven until the fat shimmers before the batter goes in. Cornbread baked in a square pan does the same job.
- YieldAbout 2 lb of turnips serves four as a side dish; the pork version, with cornbread, will feed three or four as a light main.