English Peas, Spring Onions and Roasted Almonds

Just cooked English peas, sautéd spring onions and roasted, salted almonds are a delicious combination of tender sweet, sweet pungent, and crunchy just salty. You can set this side dish next to grilled fish or chicken or mashed potatoes and a roast. It's...

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Tokyo Turnip: Raw or Steamed

The Tokyo turnip is a diminutive, small radish-sized turnip with a crunchy, juicy bitter- sweet flavor eaten raw. Steamed it is buttery-sweet and delicate.

You will find the Tokyo turnip in early spring. You might mistake it for a white radish if you don’t look closely enough. The Tokyo turnip is white through and through.

Tokyo turnips are most often harvested at 1 to 3 inches (2.5-7.6 cm) in diameter. They will be globe shaped and perhaps slightly flattened. About 8 to 12 of these pearly turnips make a pound. Look for them still attached to fresh greens.

The Japanese call these turnips kabura-type turnips, varieties include ‘Tokyo White’, ‘Tokyo Market’, and ‘Tokyo Cross’. In markets outside of Japan, all are usually simply called Tokyo turnips or white turnips.

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Serving Turnips

Let turnips surprise you. They may not be wildly popular but they can be tasty.

Here are a few suggestions for serving turnips:

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Turnip

Turnips braised in butter, parslied turnips, turnip and potato purée, glazed turnips, turnip casserole: these are just a few of the ways that the “French Chef” Julia Child suggested one might enjoy turnips.

Small young turnips are delicate and slightly sweet; larger more mature turnips can have the crisp flavor of an apple or offer the biting flavor of cabbage, mustard, or radish.

The peak season for turnips runs from October through March. Young turnips are common at farm markets in spring.

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Turnips: The Gold Ball

You might not think of a turnip the way you do a carrot, but you could.

Turnips can be eaten raw or cooked. Like a carrot, the turnip can be boiled or steamed. You can serve them in soups and stews or puréed, stuffed or braised.

There are two seasons of the year when turnips are worth their weight in gold, that’s in the spring and in the fall. The fall harvest can last well into winter.

Right now you can find Gold Ball turnips at your farm market. The Gold Ball has been long noted for its flavor, slightly sweet and smooth with an aftertaste of almond.

The late fall harvest particularly favors the Gold Ball which like most good tasting turnips comes to maturity during the times of the year when the outside temperatures tend to stay uniformly cool. That’s fall and spring. (Summer heat can make almost all turnips tough and bitter tasting.) Young Gold Ball turnips should still be available now.

Like its name suggests, the Gold Ball has a golden-yellow skin and flesh. At maturity, it is about the size of a small ball, not more than 6 inches (15 cm) in diameter. Like all turnips, if harvested at half its mature size, it will be the most mellow tasting.

The exact origin of the Gold Ball is unclear, but it is an old-time variety that dates back at least to the early 19th century in Scotland and the North of England. It was registered in the United States patent office in 1855 as Robertson’s Gold Ball.

Turnips, in general, have been in cultivation for more than 4,000 years and probably originated in the Near East. The Greeks and Romans were known to have developed several varieties. Besides the root, turnip leaves can be eaten much like spinach.

If you want the best tasting turnips, select small turnips—no bigger than 3 inches (7.5 cm) in diameter--with unblemished skin and fresh, green leaves. The flesh of larger turnips can be woody. A turnip should feel heavy for it size.

Turnips can be kept in the refrigerator in a plastic bag for up to 1 week.

Raw turnips can be shredded with cabbage and carrots and served with a sharp mustard vinaigrette. Young turnips can be sliced raw and added to salads or served as substitutes for radishes.

Steamed and boiled turnips can be served with butter or cream. You can add sugar to the water to improve the flavor. You should allow 10 to 15 minutes when boiling turnips and slightly longer when steaming them.

If you bring home Gold Ball turnips this week, you might follow the advice of many experienced cooks: pair them with carrots. The taste is excellent.

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