(just my imagination) baked turnips / rutabagas

Polish: rzepa
Icelandic: næpa
French: navet
Hebrew: לפת
Marathi: शलगम
Czech: vodnice
Japanese: カブ
Estonian: kaalikas
Tagalog: singkamas
Turkish: şalgam
Romanian: gulie


(Turnip and black radish. Don't use black raddish to this dish)



Before Europeans know the taste of potatoes, they were all eating cooked grains, turnips, rutabagas and parsleys. In Poland potatoes are, together with bread, the very basic meal, just like rice in China. Once at my local market I found a man selling turnips. I've never seen them before and was so anxious to try. I bought 1 kilo and tried raw, with sandwich and in salad. After that, after falling in love with this vegetable, I was pickling, frying, baking, stuffing and stewing it on many ways. Turnip is universal, you can do anything with it. Sometimes I regret that I started writing this blog so late cause I missed so much great food without a pic. Many times I make a dich only once. Cause there are so many products and so many ways of preparing them. Like radish, turnip and beetroot pickles. Referring to the first post of this blog, 1 ate potatoes only once today :P) since september. All this time I was consuming turnip instead. Here is my recipe how to prepare baked aromatic juicy turnips

1/2 kg turnips (or more, or less, as you wish)
2 spoons of olive oil
2 spoons of mixed herbs (mint, thyme, rosemary, parsley, anything)
2 cloves garlic, mashed
salt, pepper

1. Wash, peel turnips and cut them into "half moons", quarters or smaller, depending on how big they are

2. Put them into a bowl and mix with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic and herbs so that oil and herbs cover the slices

3. Cover a baking pan with baking paper spread turnips, cover turnips with baking paper so that they stay juicy. Bake about half an hour in 250C




(here: baked turnip with buckwheat)

You can do exactly the same with rutabaga: