Hot/Cold Mairübchen salad with pancetta and pecans

While shopping for vegetables at our local market, I recently ran across some great looking Mairübchen, baby turnips sold with their greens still attached. I bought them with the initial idea of serving these as a simple turnip salad, nothing more than sliced turnips in an Italian style vinaigrette. As usual I would have thrown the greens away. But then I remembered something I had read only recently from RussParsons on the LA Times: a very nice article entitled Eat shoots, leaves (requires registration). Looking at the turnip greens I couldn't stop thinking about the following line I had read there: "A veggie's most delicious bits are what often goes in the can.". What to do with those greens?

Eating them simply as greens would have been the obvious choice, but why not try and combine them to the turnips themselves? The idea of having the whole vegetable on a plate tickled my phantasy and so I started to toy with the idea of a salad with cold turnip slices and hot sauteed greens. Daniela, my wife, was not exactly enthusiastic about my culinary curiosity. Was I sure we could eat those greens? Was I going to poison us?

She seemed less doubtful once I decided to add pancetta and nuts to the salad. While she definitely is the more careful between the two of us, she's almost as curious as I am when it comes to food. And she loves crispy pancetta. Still, it was with some anticipation that I served my salad to my very own in-house critic. After a first bite, she complained that there were not enough greens in the salad, and could she please have more. I guess I passed the critics test, and without any need to poison her.

I found the salad even better than expected. The cold crunch of the turnips perfectly contrasted the hot bitter greens, while the pancetta and the pecans added a bit of taste explosions on their own. As an afterthought these two together scream maple syrup in my mind. Next time I guess I'll slightly modify the recipe to use a maple syrup flavored vinaigrette. Or actually, if you have any other idea on how to include this ingredient in the recipe drop me a line below. Suggestions are extremely welcome.

Hot/Cold Turnip salad with pancetta and pecans
serves 4 as an appetizer

4 small white turnips (called Mairübchen in German) with their greens attached,
a handfull of shelled peacans, halved or roughly chopped,
40-50g pancetta or good quality dry-cured bacon, cut into lardons,
1 garlic clove, peeled,
olive oil, salt, pepper and vinegar (possibly Sherry vinegar),
a little balsamic vinegar.

Remove the greens from the turnips, wash them, and prepare them for cooking removing the hard central stem and keeping the leaves. Tear the leaves with your hands into rather large pieces and set aside.

Peel the turnips and slice them as thin as possible (use a mandoline if you have one). Put into an iced water bath

Toast the pecan nuts in a pan or in your oven (set at 150°C) till they just start to brown ad set aside. In a non stick pan, saute the bacon till crunchy on the outside. Remove from the pan and set aside, reserving the rendered fat.

Prepare a simple vinaigrette with olive oil, salt, pepper and vinegar.

Heat the bacon fat in the same pan. Once hot add the garlic clove and  saute till golden, then remove it from the pan. Add the greens to the pan, season them with salt and just a splash of balsamic vinegar and cook till they're wilted.

Remove the sliced turnips from the iced water bath, dry them with a kitchen towel and toss with the vinaigrette.

Arrange the turnip slices and their greens in a mound and sprinkle bacon and peacans on top. Serve and enjoy!

Comments

[Cathy]

Hi Alberto - Looks good! I didn't even realize you could eat turnips raw. I suppose only the baby ones are good that way? About the maple syrup - perhaps you could glaze the pecans with it.

[clare eats]

That salad looks great.

Perhaps your could glaze the turnip slices with maple syrup?

[Alberto]

Cathy, I think the "normal" turnips could be eaten raw at the cost of a really slow and troublesome digestion, but to be hoenst I never tried. Maple syrup glazed pecans sounds great, I'll definitely give it a try.

Clare, thanks. Glazing the turnip slices is something I had definitely not though about, I'll try it out to see how it works.

[wasabi]

now that's a well-balanced meal--wonderful way to use the whole plant. and yes, caramelization makes this humble root veg heavenly.

[Alberto]

wasabi, reading all these enthusiastic opinions on caramelization I'll have to give maple glazed turnip slices a try!

[Amy]

Hi Alberto,
I just wanted to let you know that after reading your post about the baby turnip salad, I went to the supermarket to find it. It was there, but it was obviously not very fresh, and a little pricey. So I waited a few more days until the weekly outdoor market that´s held in the Turkish neighborhood in Berlin. There, I easily found several stands selling Mairübchen. It was so cool to go from reading about it in a blog, and then seeing it in person! This time, the baby turnips were fresh and rock firm to the touch. I bought four for 1.50 euros. That was Friday, and I haven´t had a chance to prepare them yet (I bought so much produce from the market, it´s ridiculous) But I imagine a salad like yours will highlight its freshness the best. Thanks a bunch for this timely and seasonal post!

[Alberto]

Amy, you're more than welcome! I love that "from the blog to the plate" feeling too; reading blog recipes, especially those for IMBB, has been a great source of ideas in the past year. Saves all the time I used to spend breaking my head about what too cook for dinner :-).

[clare eats]

Hi Alberto :)

Tag your it!

I have tagged you for the Meme from Delcious days
http://www.deliciousdays.com/archives/2005/06/12/tcnd/
http://eatstuff.blogspot.com/2005/06/cook-next-door.html

I can't wait to see what you write.

xo
clare

[Alberto]

I just knew I would get tagged :-)!

[clare eats]

lol

[Daria M.]

Hi Alberto,

I just posted a comment about this on Viv's site, but I would like to reiterate here that I think it's quite ridiculous that the roundup to the last IMBB has not been posted yet... 2 weeks after the fact. There has to be some sort of deadline so we can quit visiting the site to check if everyone's entry had been written up. I don't really care that there were a lot of entrants, either. Others have managed it.

Sorry to interrupt your regular (quite enjoyable) posts and feel free to delete this comment--I just needed a quick place to vent.

[Alberto]

Daria,

I can understand your concern and disappointment, though I don't necessairly share them.

Bloggin is, for most of us, a hobby and a passion but it is not our job. IMBB? relies completely on the volunteer work of a number of passionate food loving bloggers, and as such there will inevitably be times when our life/day job catches up and prevents us from doing things as we would like. My own lack of posts in the past month is caused by exactly this reason.

Viv was kind enough to step up at short notice and fill a slot gone vacant in the IMBB? hosting timetable, and this although she had already told me she would be very busy during this time. From my part I can only be greateful to her for what she has done, and I find the criticism understandeable but not deserved.

[clare eats]

Alberto where are you! I am still waiting for your flatbread ;)

[Robert Kim]

looks very very tasty! since my father is korean, i grew up eating lots of korean dishes. koreans love to use raw radishes and turnips in salads. we ALWAYS use turnip greens too--in salads, in soups, or drying them for later use. (they take on a flavor somewhat different than the fresh--kind of like porcini). che gusto!

[wasabi]

dove stai, alberto?
i miss the new posts :) hope all is well across the pond!

[Petra]

I miss you too - hope everything is alright.