Please don’t judge me by that song reference/terrible pun, I’m just really excited about turnips today!
I’ve been experimenting lately with turnips as an alternative for potatoes and it’s crazy how well it’s working! I’ve diced them up and fried them in a pan, I’ve boiled them and mashed them up with cauliflower, and today I decided to try shredding them and cooking them like hash browns… ding ding ding! We have a winner!
I know you’re a smart person, and you can probably figure this recipe out on your own, but I am a chatty person with no one to talk to today so I’m going to go step-by-step on this…ready?!
Step One:
Acquire a turnip. I use the little ones, with the white flesh (also called a rutabaga) but I’d imagine the waxy, yellow ones would probably work too…I’ll have to try them next 🙂
Step Two:
Trim ’em up. I always peel the skin off the outside, and cut the ends off. From here you can dice them, slice them, or like I did…shred them! Now, try not to be put off by the smell… I know it’s strong (almost horseradish-ish) but they totally mellow out when they’re cooked.
Step 3:
Wrap your shredded turnips in a cheese cloth, flour cloth or even a bunch of paper towels and squeeze the life and liquid out of them. They will brown up SO much better if they’re super dry. Next, I put some bacon fat in a pan (you could just as easily use coconut oil, or ghee) heated it up over medium heat until it was super hot and spread the shreds evenly in the pan. This next part is hard so listen closely… DON’T TOUCH THEM! Just let them sit there in that pan, and brown up. It’s going to take a couple minutes, but really let them get a little dark and crunchy on the bottom and then you can flip them. Or scatter them, how ever you want to do it…After everything seems soft and brown then you should season them.
The reasons I waited to season them are:
- pepper burns really easily
- adding salt to a vegetable will draw the water out.
If I’d put salt in there too soon it could make them mushy and thats not what I wanted!! Once I was confident that the water had been cooked out, I cracked some black pepper, and some sea salt on top, tossed them around in the pan to season everything thoroughly and partnered them up with some fried eggs…