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Turnips for Garnish
Peel the turnips, and then cut them to any fancy shape desired, such as corks, balls, etc. Blanch them in boiling water for five minutes, leave them till cool, drain, and put them into a saucepan with sufficient broth to cook them in; season with a little salt and sugar, and boil the turnips till they are rather soft. They are then ready for garnish.
A straightforward turned-vegetable garnish of the sort that finished nearly every roast and braise in a hotel kitchen of the period. The technique is simple; the shaping is the work.
- Shaping"Corks" means cylinders cut with a knife or apple corer, roughly the size of a wine cork; "balls" are cut with a parisienne scoop (melon baller). Uniform size matters more than elegance, since mixed sizes will not finish cooking together.
- Which turnipsThe recipe says only "turnips"; small white turnips are the likeliest intention rather than rutabaga or swede. Smaller roots are the better choice, since large ones tend to be woody and bitter at the core.
- Why blanch firstThe five-minute blanch takes the edge off the raw turnip's sulphurous flavour before it goes into the broth. The original simply leaves them to cool; refreshing in cold water instead will help keep them white.
- Broth"Sufficient broth" is not quantified; enough to barely cover is a sensible reading. A light stock suits best, as a heavily reduced or salty one will concentrate as the liquid cooks down and overwhelm the vegetable.
- The sugarThe little salt and sugar point towards the French treatment of young roots, where the cooking liquid is let down to a syrup that coats the pieces (glaçage à blanc), though the original only says to boil them till rather soft. The recipe asks for "a little" sugar and no more; swirl the pan at the end rather than stirring, which breaks the pieces.
- "Rather soft"The recipe says to boil them; expect roughly ten to fifteen minutes after the blanch depending on size. Test with the point of a knife: it should meet no resistance but the piece should still hold its shape when lifted.
- QuantityThe original gives none. For four plates, a pound of turnips yields plenty of shaped pieces plus generous trim — save the trimmings for soup or a purée.
- Holding and reheatingThese can be cooked ahead and held in their liquid, then brought back over low heat just before serving.
Turned and glazed root vegetables belong to the vocabulary of the professional garnish, in which a plate was finished with small identical shapes of carrot, turnip and potato arranged in groups around a roast. Oscar Tschirky, who was maître d'hôtel at the Waldorf rather than its chef, compiled this book in 1896 out of the working practice of a large hotel kitchen, and its inclusion of such a bare procedural note tells you who he expected to read it: someone who already knew what a garnish was for and needed only the method. The shape names — corks, balls — point to cuts a garde-manger or vegetable cook would have produced by hand. The little sugar in the pot is the giveaway that this is French kitchen technique rather than plain boiled vegetable: glazing with stock and sugar until the liquid falls to a syrup was, and remains, the standard treatment for young roots in classical practice.