My painting of a turnip was featured in the Fall issue of Edible Green Mountains along with an article entitled Edible Traditions – Vermont roots: Gilfeather Turnips. 
Inspired by the article and delighted to find locally grown, organic gilfeather turnips at the farmers’ market I decided to try this heirloom vegetable in my version of Turnip Soup. Worried that it would be too ‘turnippy’ I added potato and a bit of sour cream to the pot.
I wanted to serve the soup for dinner and decided to toast some pita and top it with cheese and tomato. I put the pita into the oven, set the timer for four minutes. Unfortunately, the broiler in my new oven is much more robust than the broiler in my old oven. At the three minute mark, there were flames coming out of the oven vent. I opened the oven, dumped the flaming pita into the sink and filled the kitchen with smoke.
Twenty minutes later, the smoke was gone, (no we didn’t need the help of those folks who come in the big red truck), I made toast and dinner was ready and delicious. Here’s how I did it:
Gilfeather Turnip Soup
I sauteed one medium onion, diced, and two large cloves of garlic, minced, in one tablespoon of butter and one tablespoon of grape seed oil. When the onions were soft and translucent I added one large, grapefruit size, peeled and sliced gilfeather turnip and one peeled and diced russet potato and enough vegetable broth to just cover the vegetables.
After the broth came to a boil, I reduced the heat, covered the pot. After about twenty minutes of simmering the vegetables were very tender. I took the pot off the heat and used an immersion blender to puree the turnip and potato. I poured in enough milk to thin the soup a bit and stirred in half a cup of sour cream, added salt and pepper to taste, ladled the soup into bowls and topped each serving with a spoonful of sour cream.
A perfect dinner for a rainy autumn evening.
This soup, like most simple vegetable soups, is very forgiving, quantities are approximate, the liquid can be stock, boullion or water. Milk, cream, yogurt and sour cream will all work. The potato smoothed out the flavor, rice would do the same. This soup can be topped with chives, curry powder could be added to the onions when they are being sauteed.
Take charge, have fun, and make it your own.
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Gilfeather Turnip Soup
- 1 medium onion
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 T butter
- 1 T grape seed oil
- 1 large gilfeather turnip
- 1 russet potato
- vegetable broth
- milk
- 1/2 c sour cream
- salt & pepper
I had to laugh at the flaming pitas
The soup looks delicious. I think that was creative to offset the potential strong turnip flavor with sour cream and potato.
Great blog post!
Thanks for stopping by. The pita would have made perfect frisbees if only they weren’t so delicate.