Clapshot brings turnips to table

The turnips in our garden are huge this year. Actually ours are Swede turnips, aka rutabagas. My husband, Jamie, whose Cape Breton-born, Scotch-descended mother never missed a chance to put them on the table, grew up eating turnips nearly every night. It cured his brother Brian for life. Brian hates turnips now but Jamie still likes them, a good thing, because are we ever going to eat turnips this winter! These rich, earthy and, bless them, inexpensive vegetables are easy to find in local stores and farmers markets.

We had our first turnip, actually only half of one, in our first boiled dinner of the season. I love the soft yellow color of them with the brilliant orange of carrots, creamy white of potato and the pale green of cabbage on the platter next to the boiled corned beef or ham. (I serve beets with boiled dinner, too, but to keep everything from turning a lurid pink color, I cook the beets separately.)

White turnips with purple tops are perfectly good, too, and some of you may prefer them. Either white or the yellow will work in this week’s recipe, which goes by the fairly unappealing name of clapshot, a Scottish dish that mixes turnips and potatoes. Marian McNeill, the authority on historic Scottish cooking, said this dish came from the Orkney Islands, off the northern coast of Scotland, and that it is good with haggis. I suppose it is, but I like it with roast chicken or pork, too.

Clapshot is the very essence of simplicity, but makes a nice change from plain old boiled turnips in one pile and mashed potatoes in another. It eases turnips onto the plates of the dubious or reluctant, too, because the combination softens the turnip flavor a bit. In fact, clapshot is a good excuse for making too much mashed potato one night, that way you are halfway there the next. You can always jazz it up with the judicious application of parsley, onion or chives, garlic, or Parmesan cheese. If you like chard or kale, you can shred some of those into the mixture, too.

Because vegetables do not come in convenient 1-cup or 1/2-cup sizes, I will not tell you to use 2 cups of cooked potatoes and 2 cups of cooked turnip. But you are aiming for roughly equal quantities of the two.

Rutabagas may take a little longer to cook than the potatoes if they are cut the same size. To save boiling time, you can cut them a little smaller. You can boil them together if you want, but test from time to time and take out any tender pieces to avoid overcooking them.

Looking for…

Lisa Bates in Milford is looking for two orangey recipes: Orange Creamsicle Cookies (made with Tang) and Orange Cream Cake (made with orange Kool-Aid, orange Jell-O, lemon cake mix, and Dream Whip), which turned out to be a hit the three times she made it. She found these recipes in Taste of Home, but now can’t locate them. Can anybody help?

Clapshot

1 potato per person

1 small purple topped turnip per person, or about one quarter of a small to medium rutabaga

Salt and pepper

Butter or cream (optional)

1 small onion, chopped and saut?ed five minutes (optional), or a handful of chopped chives

1 cup of shredded greens (optional)

Pare and divide the potatoes, and set on the stove to boil in barely enough water to cover. Pare the turnips and cut up in 2-inch chunks and put to boil, too. When both potatoes and turnips are tender, take them off the stove, drain, and combine them in one pot. Mash them together with your potato masher. If you see liquid in the bottom of the pot, drain them a bit in a sieve. Add salt and pepper to taste, and the optional cream, butter, onion, chives and greens. Blend them well together, and serve while they are still hot. Variable servings.