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Glazed Turnips
Peel some turnips and cut them into the shapes of small pears; put them in a saucepan with some water and a small quantity of salt, and boil them for ten minutes. Turn them on a sieve and leave them until thoroughly drained. Melt about one ounce of butter in a saucepan, put in the turnips, strew in plenty of powdered sugar, and toss them about over the fire until they begin to color. Moisten them with a small quantity of broth, season with salt, pepper, and a little ground cinnamon, and boil them gently until tender. When cooked pile the turnips on a hot dish, pour the sauce over them, and serve.
A straightforward glaze that depends on two things: draining the parboiled turnips properly and letting the sugar actually caramelize before any liquid goes in.
- The hingeThe turnips must be bone dry off the sieve and the sugar must take on real color in the butter before you moisten them. Add broth too early and you get boiled turnip in sweet broth rather than a glaze.
- Turning the shapesCutting turnips into small pear shapes is the sort of turned cut associated with French kitchen work; uniform pieces cook evenly and look tidy. Quartered or halved small turnips cook much the same; you simply lose the presentation the recipe is after.
- Which turnipSmall white or purple-top turnips work best; the recipe gives no quantity, but around 1.5-2 lb will serve four. Large old winter turnips tend to be coarser and more bitter, and the sugar will not disguise that.
- Powdered sugarIn period usage this means finely ground granulated sugar, not the cornstarch-cut confectioners' sugar sold today. Regular granulated is the correct substitute; 'plenty' is left to the cook, but a couple of tablespoons is a reasonable reading for this quantity.
- Broth quantity'A small quantity' means just enough to moisten, not to cover; something around 1/2 cup. The liquid should have reduced to a syrup by the time the turnips are tender, which will take a quarter of an hour or so at a gentle simmer.
- The parboilTen minutes is a preliminary boil rather than the whole cooking; the turnips finish in the glaze, so stop while they still have some firmness.
- Cinnamon'A little' means a pinch. It should read as warmth against the sugar rather than as a spiced dish.
- YieldEnough for about four as a vegetable; it suits roast duck, lamb or pork.
Glazed turnips belong to the French repertoire that Oscar Tschirky's Waldorf kitchen drew on heavily; the technique is navets glaces, a standard garnish in professional kitchens of the period and often paired with duck and mutton, whose richness the sweetened root offsets. Uniformly turned pieces were a mark of a well-staffed kitchen, where matching sizes meant the plate looked composed and the pieces cooked at the same rate. The cinnamon is the older note here: sweet spice on root vegetables was common in English and French cookery well before the nineteenth century, and it survives in dishes like this after it had largely retreated from savory cooking elsewhere. Oscar was maitre d'hotel rather than chef, and the book collects the house's working formulas, which is why the instructions assume a cook who already knows what "until they begin to color" looks like.