Turnip Greens
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the turnip greens in about 4 cups of water and pick over thoroughly.
Cook the greens
In a pot, bring water to a boil and add the bacon; cook for 30 minutes.
Add the greens to the pot and cook slowly for 3 hours.
For corn dodgers, scald 1 quart of cornmeal with boiling water and mix in 1 tablespoon of salt.
Form the mixture into balls and drop them into the greens; cook for 1 hour.
Serve
Serve the corn dodgers with the greens.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Turnip greens (in the method)
- Provide the main vegetable body of the dish, softening into tender greens during long simmering.
- Bacon
- Adds smoky, salty fat to the cooking water, flavouring the greens as they simmer.
- Cornmeal
- Forms the starchy dough of the corn dodgers, which set into firm balls when scalded and cooked.
The step that matters
Scalding the cornmeal. Boiling water must be mixed in thoroughly so the starch hydrates evenly; otherwise the dough stays dry and crumbly and the dodgers will not hold their shape in the pot.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
More turnip greens recipes
You might also like
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
Yorkshire Pudding264 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.