Pasta with Turnips and Turnip Tops

Turnips, turnips, turnips!
Trying to eat local organic produce throughout the winter has been a challenge. It's been a lot of root vegetables - potatoes, turnips, parsnips, rutabagas, celeriac/jerusalem artichokes, black radishes, and a few I didn't know. Apart from potatoes, not my favourite vegetable selection but I've tried to make the most of it, making root vegetable korma, aligot (French cheesy-garlicky potato puree), roast vegetable salads, soups, and using them as a base of chillies and curries.
Growing up in NZ I never really ate turnips though - we mainly ate potatoes, carrots, kumara/sweet potato and beetroot and I tried to avoid parsnips and yams. My main association with turnips were the children's books 'The Great Big Enormous Turnip' and 'The Hobyahs'.

The Hobyahs storybook video

Not being so keen on building a house out of turnips and quickly running out of ideas for using turnips in meals,  I searched my recipe books for ideas. In 'The Top One Hundred Pasta Sauces' by Diane Seed, I found a recipe from Puglia that used the turnip tops: Orecchiette con Cime di Rape (Orecchiette with Turnip Tops). Vegetables at the market are often sold in bunches with their tops still attached so we can appreciate their freshness and it seems a waste not to use the leaves if there's something yummy we can make with them.  So I've made this nice recipe a few times but also added the turnip roots to use the whole bunch at once. Thanks to some restaurants here in France, I've learned turnips are very nice caramelised, which can be done either by slicing thinly and cooking, stirring, in a pan till they naturally caramelise, or, if using larger chunks like here, adding a bit of olive oil or butter and a little sugar or honey to help things along (sometimes water or vegetable stock is also used).

So here's my combination of the two ideas:

Pasta with Caramelised Turnips and Turnip Tops.

Serves 4 as a main or six as an entree.

Ingredients

500g / 1 lb orecchiette or other short pasta
1 bunch of small fresh turnips with green tops attached
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp liquid honey or 1-2 tsp sugar (optional)
salt

4 Tbsp / olive oil (second measure)
5 cloves of garlic
1 or 2 small chilli peppers or 2 tsp / 10ml dried chilli flakes

Method

Cut the tops off the turnips and set the greens aside. Brush the turnips clean in water. Cut into bite-sized chunks. In a frying pan, saute the turnip roots, turning often (8-10 minutes) or steam above the boiling water till becoming tender. Then, in frying pan, add sugar or honey and oil to turnips and cook, stirring now and then, till caramelised - they will be nicely browned in places. Set aside till ready to use.

Now wash the turnip tops and cut into long thin strips. Heat a large pot of salted water (this will be used for cooking first the greens and later, pasta). When water is boiling, plunge in the greens and blanch, making sure not to overcook - they should remain vivid green. Remove greens with a slotted spoon (or you can cook greens in a colander to make removal easier). Keep the water and boil the pasta in it. You may need to add some more water if there was not enough. Cook pasta till al dente.

In another frying pan (or remove turnips to a bowl and clean first pan) heat the second measure of olive oil. Add chopped garlic and chilli pepper, stirring until garlic is golden brown but not burnt.

When pasta is nearly ready, add the greens back into the pan and cook together another couple of minutes. Drain carefully, shaking colander to remove any water trapped in the pasta. Pour the pasta and turnip greens into a large warmed serving dish. Add the caramelised turnips, mix gently then pour over the garlic/chilli oil and stir well. Serve at once.

Pardon my blurry photo and lack of orecchiette pasta