Braised Pork with Turnips and Greens - May 27, 2011

I forgot to take a picture, but this dish was just too good to not share! As I mentioned earlier, I was a bit intimidated by the turnips in our first CSA box. I've never cooked them before and really had no idea what to do with them, or even what they taste like. I wasn't brave enough to just cook them up and decided a good entry to turnip eating would be to prepare them with something I knew we would love... So pork to the rescue!

I followed this recipe for Braised Pork with Turnips from Mark Bittman, but added a few twists. First, Richie requested noodles as a side dish, which turned out to be a brilliant idea. I cooked some egg noodles, tossed them with butter and caraway seeds, which added a natural complimentary taste to the pork. Second, inspired by Jess's comment on my original CSA post, I added the chopped greens during the last three or four minutes of cooking. Delicious! I'm a turnip convert and hoping to see more in future shares!

A few thoughts on the recipe... I used a shoulder roast and didn't trim all the fat off, so it ended up being fairly greasy (though in a very tasty way!) at the end. I think the dish would be very different with a leaner loin roast. Also, I used chicken stock because I had a partial carton in the refrigerator that needed to be used, but I'd like to try the recipe with white wine next time.