Braised Turnips with Mushrooms and Peas

I dropped the ball last week and forgot to tweak our produce basket. Which means that we ended up with a surprise assortment of fruits and vegetables. One of which was a bag of turnips. TF and I don't really eat a lot of turnips. I've never particularly cared for them. That said, I wasn't about to let them go to waste once we had them. So that meant scrambling to redo this week's meal plan to work in all the random extra veggies we got.

It turns out that the Vegetable of the Day cookbook doesn't have much use for turnips either. They just don't appear in that many recipes. So when I came across this braised turnip dish, I jumped on it.

Sadly, I wasn't that impressed with how this came out. It was edible, but that's about the best I can say for it. The braising didn't really do great things for the turnip. And the mushrooms and peas weren't really harmonious with it either. It just seemed like a bunch of disparate elements that were all fighting with each other. Not a great success.

Maybe one day I will find a really great turnip recipe, but this definitely wasn't it.

Braised Turnips with Mushroms and Peas

From Vegetable of the Day by Kate McMillan

Ingredients

• 225g cremini mushrooms, sliced
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 Tbsp. unsalted butter
• 450g turnips, peeled and cut into wedges ~1cm thick
• 2/3 c. chicken or vegetable stock, divided
• 1 c. frozen peas
• 2 Tbsp. chopped flat-leaf parsley

Directions

1. Heat a pan over medium heat.
2. Add the mushrooms, cover, and cook until they release some liquid.
3. Add the garlic, season with salt and pepper, and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
4. Transfer to a bowl and set aside.
5. Melt butter over medium heat.
6. Add the turnips and sauté for 1-2 minutes.
7. Add 1/3 c. of the stock and cook until mostly evaporated (3-4 minutes).
8. Flip the turnip pieces, add the remaining 1/3 c. of stock, and cook for another 3-4 minutes.
9. Add the peas, return mushrooms to pan, and cook for a minute or two longer.
10. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.