Butter-Glazed Gilfeather Turnips | Everyday Dorie

I found these gilfeather turnips, huge and prominently displayed, in a farm in Vermont. A few years ago, the gilfeather Turnips became Vermont’s state vegetable, tracing their lineage to Gilfeather Farm on Gilfeather Road in Wardsboro, VT. The gilfeather turnip, a rutabaga-turnip hybrid, is a root vegetable that is normally harvested after the first hard frost of the season.

A special ingredient calls for a special treatment. I’m excited in cooking and glazing the gilfeather turnips — in butter and sugar, according to Dorie Greenspan’s recipe in Everyday Dorie. Dorie starts with bringing water, sugar and salt to a boil. Then drop in the turnips, cook over medium-low heat with a lid on until they are’re almost tender. Meanwhile, turn the turnips occasionally, checking that there’s enough water in the pan to bubble around them. When the turnips are cooked through, remove the cover and turn up the heat. That’d allow the water to gently evaporate and the bottom of the turnips to brown. That takes about 15 minutes.

For the gilfeather turnips, now I gain some experience cooking them, they should be cut in smaller pieces (1.5-inch cubes). Another tip for the getting some color on the turnips: don’t flip them too often in the last few minutes of cooking.

If you wonder what other dishes will go well with these butter-glazed turnips, my suggestion is a meze collection of small plates of pureed beets, butternut squash and eggplant.

At the Vermont farm, I also came across some lovely pearl onions. I got some together with the gilfeather turnips. Gave the onions the same treatment in cooking and glazing them in the butter emulsion. Voila, they look like they very much belong in the same dish. I dress them with maple syrup (instead of honey in Dorie’s recipe), a got-to-have in Vermont.