Turnip Tops with Bacon

An English West Country spring green: tender turnip tops blanched and tossed with crisp bacon, butter, and a little garlic

Origin: The West Country, England

From the journey of Turnip.

Before the turnip became, in eighteenth-century Norfolk, the fodder crop that powered the agricultural revolution, it was a vegetable of the English cottage garden, eaten leaf and all, and its tender young tops have remained a traditional spring green of the English West Country to this day. Turnip tops, the first leaves and immature flowering shoots of the plant, carry a gentle mustard bitterness much like the Italian cime di rapa to which they are kin, and the old country way with them is the best: blanched to soften their edge, then tossed in a hot pan with crisp bacon, butter, and a little garlic, the salt fat of the pork set against the green bitterness of the leaf. The dish belongs to the thrifty, seasonal cooking of rural England, in which nothing of a useful plant was wasted and the green tops of a root crop were as welcome at the table as the root itself. It is the English cousin of the turnip-greens traditions that run from the cime di rapa of Puglia to the grelos of Galicia to the soul-food greens of the American South, all of them ways of cooking the humble leaf of the turnip with a piece of cured pork. Quick, plain, and good, it is the turnip remembered as a green.

Ingredients

  • 500 g turnip tops (the leaves and tender shoots of the turnip), tough stems removed
  • 150 g smoked streaky bacon, cut into lardons
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
  • salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • a squeeze of lemon or a splash of cider vinegar (optional)

Method

  1. Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. Blanch the turnip tops for 2–3 minutes, until just tender, then drain well and, when cool enough, squeeze out the excess water and chop coarsely.
  2. Fry the bacon lardons in a dry frying pan over medium heat until the fat runs and the bacon is crisp and golden.
  3. Add the butter and the sliced garlic to the bacon and its fat, and cook for a minute until the garlic is fragrant but not browned.
  4. Add the chopped, squeezed turnip tops and toss over the heat for 2–3 minutes, until hot through and coated in the bacon fat and butter.
  5. Season with pepper (and salt only if needed, as the bacon is salty), and a squeeze of lemon or splash of cider vinegar to lift it if you like. Serve hot, as a side to roast or grilled meats.

Notes

Turnip tops are sold by greengrocers and farm shops in spring, and any turnips bought with their leaves on will give you a free portion; cime di rapa, sprouting broccoli tops, or young kale stand in well. The dish is a fine side to roast pork, sausages, or a Sunday roast, and good piled onto toast with a poached egg. A pinch of chilli flakes turns it towards its Italian cousin, orecchiette con cime di rapa.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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