Adventures with Turnip Green Soup

I was very skeptical about this handwritten recipe found among Mama Nell’s collection. I figured it must be good if she asked somebody for the recipe, but I felt I ought to try it out before posting.

Hubby likes to go grocery shopping, so he does much of it, and I figured the few ingredients would be a snap. How hard is it to find turnip greens and turnip roots on December 30? Very hard in this big city, it seems. Three stores did not have them. I had to settle for frozen greens and three small turnips. Not enough for the recipe, so I cut it down.

No turnip greens here!

The frozen greens were full of stalks. I managed to pick out about half of them. Then I cooked the greens with a bit of slab bacon left over from the Beef Bourguinon I made for our celebration with the kids before Christmas. I cooked the turnips in a separate pot with the onions and chicken broth and milk. I realized my pots were wearing out when the tops didn’t fit well, so I had to keep an eye on the pots while trolling Macy’s sale for possible replacements. The cooking took about an hour.

I used a high-sided pot for the turnips and then used my handy immersion blender to puree them. Then I mixed in the turnip greens and cooked the soup for a while longer with a fresh pepper.

Two is quite enough

I tasted the soup.

Oooh, yum! It was good! I must say, hubby did not eat his complete bowlful, whereas I wanted to lick the bowl after I’d finished, but then he is suspicious of all leafy greens except spinach.

So, with all that information, here’s

Turnip Green Soup

3 cups turnip greens [washed, stripped, chopped]

6 cups sliced turnip roots

2 cups chicken stock

1 cup milk

4 Tbsp. butter

1 chopped onion

Salt & freshly ground pepper

1 garlic clove, mashed

(Pepper pod)

Cook greens with pepper pod in pot (if desired)

Saute onion in butter

Add chicken stock & milk—add sliced roots

When done, puree in food processor, add back to stock

Thicken with flour if needed; add greens, fresh pepper & heat through.