Unorganized Cooking: Whoops! Wrong vegetable!

Welcome back to Unorganized Cooking! In this article, I will try to make turnip fries. To be honest, these didn’t come out as crispy as I was hoping and turned out more as fries you get after forgetting about the fries at the bottom of the McDonald’s bag for a day and then eating it with that soft, greasy texture. If you have an air fryer and would like to do the calculations yourself, be my guest, but with that said, let’s turn up for turnips.

Ingredients:

  • Turnips (I used two. Also, I advise you get three just in case one of them happens to be rotting inside. Whole Foods sells some really good turnips. Another thing to keep in mind is that those waxed turnips you see in grocery stores aren’t turnips. Those are actually called rutabagas, a hybrid between turnip and cabbage.)
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Paprika
  • Olive Oil
  • Cayenne Powder
  • Garlic
  • Honey (I know this doesn’t sound like it goes together with these ingredients, but remember that there are some people who sprinkle sugar in their spaghetti.)
  • Water

Cooking Time: 1hr. (That is if you take a century to peel a turnip like I do. I don’t care if I’m supposed to use a peeler, having it cut my nail was already enough for me to stop using peelers.)

Instructions:

  1. Cut the top and bottom off of the turnips with a paring knife.
  2. With that same tool, peel the turnips, using the cut top as a base. Make sure your fingers aren’t in the way, because a paring knife has some serious precision that would hurt.
  3. After peeling the turnips, wash them. The reason we didn’t do this first was because it’s easier to peel a dry surface rather than a wet one.
  4. Flip the turnip so that the top of the bulb is facing down. From the top down vertically, slice the turnip in half with a santoku knife (I admit I had to look up the knife I used on Google). The reason I recommend you to use this one is because of the density of the turnip. Also, I forgot to mention that larger turnips are actually a bad idea since those are woodier and, like radishes, spicier.
  5. Again, cut the turnip, but in quarters.
  6. Again, cut the turnip into wedges.
  7. AGAIN, cut the turnip into fry like sticks.
  8. You may now put it in a saucepan and fill it with water.
  9. On medium high heat, cook the turnip fries for around 10 minutes. Please set a timer on your phone or on the kitchen clock if you’re about to wander off while the stove is on. When the fries are done boiling, they should be flexible.
  10. With caution, dump out the hot water, since the turnips float. For some odd reason, crunchy foods just have a lot of air in it, almost like how a bag of Lays works.
  11. In a separate bowl, scoop the turnips out and try getting as little water as possible.
  12. In that same bowl, add 3 teaspoons of olive oil, 2 pinches of paprika, a dash of cayenne powder, some salt and pepper (I forgot to keep track on how much of that I put), 6 shakes of garlic, and, if you’d like, a drizzle of honey.
  13. With your hands, mix everything together.
  14. Depending on how big your baking sheet is for your toaster oven, add 13 turnip fries, and 12 if you’re superstitious.
  15. At 425 F and set to bake, bake your turnip fries for 8 minutes on the first half, let it cool, then flip them, then bake for 6 minutes more.
  16. And there you have it. That’s how you make fries out of turnips. Stay tuned for the next recipe, parsnip sticks. Is it just turnip fries, but with parsnips? Yes, but except for just a few differences.