Golden Turnips with Butter and Sherry
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
First week of December 2007, cold and raining. The Fern Verrow stall at the market has a tray of golden turnips, the color of lavender honey and the size of Christmas baubles. I decided then and there to bake them in thick chunks with chicken stock and dill. I’m not sure where the dill idea comes from, other than the fact that it works with other root vegetables such as carrots, potatoes, and beets.
Step 2
Once I get them home, it strikes me, perhaps rather later in life than it should, that a turnip might be better cooked without liquid. I cut each round root into six pieces from stalk to tip, put them in a heavy-bottomed pan with a thick slice of butter, a pinch of fudge-colored organic sugar, black-colored pepper, a splash of sherry, and some snipped dill. They sit over a low flame, covered with a puttering lid, until soft enough to crush between finger and thumb.
Step 3
We eat them with a tray of faggots (meatballs of pork innards and belly) and gravy from the butcher. It could have been sausages. Sweet, earthy, warmly honeyed—I like the idea that something as mundane as a turnip could end up being unforgettable.
