How you can cook turnips to liven up your dinner

Top ten ways to spice up your turnips: How you can mash, fry, pickle or even curry popular root vegetable to liven up your dinner (amid a drought of other options)

Celebrating turnips may have been the last thing on people’s minds amid a national food shortage.

But Therese Coffey had other ideas, as she encouraged the UK to ‘cherish’ the root vegetable instead of lettuce and tomatoes.

Her views come as supermarkets such as Aldi, Morrisons, Asda and Tesco have limited sales of peppers and cucumbers while frosty weather hits Spain and Morocco imports.

The Secretary of State emphasised that it was ‘important to make sure that we cherish the specialisms’ of this country.

She added: ‘A lot of people would be eating turnips right now rather than thinking necessarily about… lettuce and tomatoes and similar, but I’m conscious that consumers want a year-round choice and that is what our supermarkets, food producers and growers around the world are trying to satisfy.’

Following her comments, ‘turnip’ blew up on Twitter, with one user commenting: ‘Eat turnips instead of tomatoes! Just love a turnip pizza topping don’t you?’

Another added: ‘Turnip ketchup for me.’ 

With the question of turnip dishes on everyone’s minds, MailOnline took to compiling a list of the most unexpected recipes.

Turnip hash browns

Inspired by All Nutritious Recipes:

Ingredients: Grated turnips, salt, garlic, a beaten egg, cornmeal.  

1. Add grated turnips to a mixing bowl with the scallions, a beaten egg, garlic, cornmeal and a little bit of salt and pepper.

2. Mix it until a batter forms.

3. When ready, take small clumps of the batter in your hands to form a 2-inch wide cake that is ½-inch thick.  

4.  Now the cakes can be placed into a skillet over medium heat and flipped every 30 seconds with a spatula.

5. After two to three minutes they should be golden brown and ready to eat. 

 Pink pickled turnips

A recipe from Olive magazine: 

Ingredients: Two small beetroot, four small turnips, 100g of caster sugar, two teaspoon of sea salt, one teaspoon of dried chilli flakes.

1. Put the water, sugar, vinegar, chillies into a pan and bring to simmer.

2. Meanwhile, place the peeled turnips and beetroots into a jar.

3. Once the sugar in the pan has dissolved, pour the liquid over the vegetables.

4. After this has cooled down, seal the jar and place it in a cool dark place for seven days.

Turnip fries 

Inspired by: Girl Heart Food:

Ingredients: Turnips, paprika, garlic powder, olive oil. 

1. Preheat the oven to 200 °C.

2.  Cut the peeled turnips into chip-shaped slices.

3. Put the slices in a bowl and toss in olive oil, paprika and garlic powder.

4. Bake for 30 minutes. 

Turnip soup

A recipe from EatingWell: 

Ingredients: Four turnips, half a teaspoon of dried rosemary, four cups of chicken broth, shredded carrot, two tablespoons of scallion greens, one tablespoon of butter, an onion, two tablespoons of olive oil, salt and white pepper. 

1. Heat peeled turnips in a large saucepan with oil over medium heat.

2. Add in an onion and cook until golden brown.

3. Add the salt, vinegar, pepper and cook for 10 minutes.

4. Increase the heat and add the broth.

5. Cook for a further 12 minutes before adding the carrots.

6. Transfer the liquid to a blender and blend until smooth.  

Turnip salad

A recipe from Holistic Nutrionist Maria Ushakova:

Ingredients: Grated carrot, turnips, parsley, lemon juice, salt, olive oil, and pumpkin seeds.

1. After the carrot and turnips are peeled put these into a bowl.

2. Toss the veggies in olive oil, parsley, pumpkin seeds and lemon juice.

3. Sprinkle with salt and serve. 

Turnip mash

1. Add the diced turnips to a saucepan and heat for around half an hour until tender.

2. After this, drain the turnips and add them back into the pot.

3. Sprinkle with the salt, pepper and add the butter.

4. Use a masher to pound the turnips.

 Marmalade turnips

 1. Preheat oven to 150°C.

2. Meanwhile, add oil and butter to a large dish over medium heat.

3. After a few minutes, add in the onions, stock and marmalade.

4. Leave this to boil before putting the turnips in.

5. Add a lid to the dish and leave the brew in the oven for 30 minutes.

6. Check the turnips are soft before taking back to the hob.

7. Stir in the cream on medium heat before serving. 

 Curried turnips

1. Add onion and cumin seeds to a frying pan until golden brown.

2. Put in the ginger garlic pasted and green chillies.

3. Stir in the chopped tomatoes until soft and pop in the diced turnips.

4. Cook for 20 minutes.

5. Pop the chopped cilantro on the served dish. 

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