For this week’s blog I choose to use turnips as my raw ingredient. I planned to pickle them in a middle eastern style. You would recognize these pickles at any shawarma restaurant around the world. To make these pickled turnips I used a standard pickling recipe and let them ferment for a few days. The recipe is as follows:
- 3 Cups Water
- 1 Cup White Vinegar
- 2 Bay Leaves
- 1/2 Cup Kosher Salt
- 2ish lbs Turnips
- 1 Medium Beet
- 2 Cloves Garlic
- Dissolve the salt in the water in a small pot with the bay leaves. Once dissolved set aside.
- Cut the turnips and beet into 2 inch batonnet’s.
- Crush the garlic cloves.
- In a sealable jar add all the turnips and beets, along with the cooled water mixture and the vinegar. Add the crushed garlic now as well.
- Mix well and let sit for a minimum of three days but for as long as a week. Enjoy!
The smell of the turnips is like that of any pickled product, very aromatic. I get the vinegar, garlic and bay leaf very quickly as soon as I open the jar. The pickled turnips feel wet and smooth but still hold there original shape. They are neon pink in colour, this happens from the beets added in the recipe. That actually is the only real use of the beets is for colour in the recipe, they add no additional flavours. The turnips are delicious they are very salty and briny, what you want in a good pickle. They have a little snap to them when you bite down. They turned out perfect. I would go back to this recipe anytime I want to make these in the future. For my taste they were exactly as wanted.
Aaron Tissenbaum's Blog 