What is the difference
between two pounds of turnips and a two pound
turnip?
A two pound turnip is about the
size of a softball. A two pound turnip is harder than a
hardball. A two pound turnip is not divisible into 1 inch
cubes. It just isn't.
It's not like I went looking for a
two pound turnip. No indeed. I was just looking for two
pounds of turnips to make into curried turnips. This
should have been easy.
The first market I try has plenty
of turnips but no scale. Having no scale at home and
treating all cooking like chemistry experiments, I decide
I cannot curry the turnips if I do not know how much they
weigh. Not having bought turnips in a long time, I am at
a loss as to a guesstimate.
The second market I go to has no
turnips. It's root vegetable season. How can a market
have no turnips? This is winter. Turnips are a winter
vegetable. What's up with that?
The third market has a scale in the
produce department. They have turnips, though only a few.
The turnips are gigantic. They resemble the enormous
turnip from that Russian folk tale where the farmer has
to recruit more and more help to pull and pull and pull
to get the turnip out of the ground. I pick through them
and find one that weighs exactly two pounds. Shows you
how often I cook turnips, 'cause I am clueless that a two
pound turnip is not at all the same thing as two pounds
of turnips.
I chop an onion. I mix the spices.
I peel the turnip. Next step is dice the turnip(s) into 1
inch cubes. I pick up the knife and attempt to slice the
turnip in half. Nothing happens. Am I trying to slice a
softball?
I stab harder and penetrate the
surface but am only able to slice about an inch before
the knife won't move further. OK, I can't cut it in half.
How about if I start cutting slices
off the end? I stick the knife into the turnip and lean
hard on the handle. Three quarters of the knife blade
flies across the kitchen, bounces off the refrigerator,
and lands on the stove top. Fortunately neither Wilbur
nor I are injured. I stand there holding the knife
handle, staring at it in wonderment.
Where have I put the Sawz-all?
Never mind. I rummage through the kitchen drawers. One
knife is dull. Duller than dull. Another one bends when I
try it on the turnip. Finally in the bottom of the drawer
I find this knife I haven't used in ages. It's a
multipurpose knife with different serration on each side
of the blade and a two pronged point at the end. One of
the serrated sides looks remarkably like a hacksaw
blade.
I takes about a half hour to saw
the turnip into irregular pieces not even close to cubes
let alone 1 inch cubes. I'm hungry. The onions and spices
and yogurt are sautéed and waiting in the skillet.
I dump the turnip fragments into the skillet, stir them
'til the curry mixture coats them, then cover the skillet
and cook for the recommended 30 minutes.
Thirty minutes later, the turnip
fragments are not yet tender. I add a tablespoon of water
to moisten them and cook for another 10 minutes. The
pieces closest to the center seem to be tender and I'm
really really hungry by now. I can't wait any more. I
serve myself a plateful of turnip fragments. Some of them
are curried and delicious. Most of them are crunchy.
Turnips are not supposed to be crunchy. Obviously, I
should have used smaller fragments, like the 1 inch cubes
called for in the recipe. But how was I supposed to do
that?
Nancy looks up turnips in James
Beard's American Cooking. It says small, young
turnips are tender and the cook should use those. I check
dozens of recipe web sites and discover variations on
this recipe that call for "6 small turnips, about 2
pounds." Aha! Two pounds of turnips is not the same as a
two pound turnip.
