New Ways with Ancient Vegetables: Bukharan Turnips with Chickpeas
June 4, 2018
Today I’m exploring one of the world’s oldest cultivated vegetables: the turnip!
Some of the world’s oldest known recipes, imprinted on cuneiform on four-thousand-year-old Sumerian tablets, include this sharp-flavored member of the cabbage family. According to Gil Marks, one such recipe goes, “No meat is needed. Turnips. Boil water. Throw fat in. Add onion, dorsal thorn [an unknown seasoning], coriander, cumin, and kanasu [a legume]. Squeeze leek and garlic and spread juice over dish. Add onion and mint.”
Marks notes that since all of the Sumerian recipes that made it onto these tablets were intended for the upper class, we can surmise that turnips were considered a desirable ingredient (though it must be said the Sumerians weren’t working with a tremendous range of options—if you find this topic as fascinating as I do, check out Jean Bottéro’s The Oldest Cuisine in the World).
The turnip, a drought-tolerant crop that thrives in temperate climates, probably originated somewhere in West Asia and was a mainstay in the ancient world from France to China. In the European diet of the day, it was second only to barley—another food that doesn’t get much love today—as a staple. Both the root and the greens, which have a mustardy flavor, were consumed as well as used for animal fodder.
During the Talmudic period, the word lefet (Hebrew for turnip) was sometimes used generically to mean “vegetables,” so ubiquitous was the turnip at the time.
But as more vegetables became available—especially with the arrival of the potato from South America from the sixteenth century onward—the turnip fell out of favor in Europe, where it was relegated to the diets of the poor (and used as animal fodder).
On the other hand, turnips never went out of fashion in much of Asia, where they are made into pickles, added to stews and soups, and, in fresh, young form, used raw in salads. Greens, too, continue to play a prominent role in the cuisines of areas such as Iran, Iraq Afghanistan, Northern India, and Uzbekistan.
Which brings us to today’s recipe, a dish of Bukharan turnips and chickpeas traditional to Jews from today’s Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
I’m not going to lie: this is not one of those knockout recipes that you’ve got to drop everything and make right now. There isn’t much to it—just turnips, carrots, chickpeas, onion, and yogurt—and turnips are . . . well, turnips. (According to Gil Marks, there is a line in the Talmud that reads, “Woe to the house where the turnip is common.”)
But if you find yourself with a couple turnips in need of using up and/or find yourself wanting to explore Bukharan cuisine, it’s a worthy contender. Not to say that this dish is no good—far from it! It’s quite satisfying, in a peasant-y kind of way (as is so much Jewish food).
The recipe below for bukharan turnips and chickpeas is based on Gil Marks’ version in Olive Trees and Honey. I’ve tweaked the quantities to up the carrots and lower the turnips, as I think the sweetness the carrots provide is helpful in tempering the bitterness of the turnips such that they are more palatable to American tastes. The original recipe calls for a yellow onion, but I think the lighter, fresher flavor of scallions better complements this dish.
This dish is traditionally served as a salad or side dish, though I thought it worked quite well as a main with some freekeh.
Bukharan Turnips with Chickpeas (Sholgom va Nuikhat)
1 yellow onion, peeled, or 1 bunch of scallions, trimmed and chopped
2 turnips, peeled and quartered
3 large carrots, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 ½ cups cooked chickpeas
½ cup plain yogurt
Salt and ground black pepper to taste
If using yellow onion: in a large pot of lightly salted boiling water, parboil the onion for 1 minute. Remove the onion, cut in half, then cut into slices. If using scallions, just bring a pot of lightly salted water to a boil.
Add the turnips and carrots to the water and cook until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain, saving the cooking liquid for soup stock if you like. Cut the vegetables into ½-inch cubes.
In a large bowl, combine the turnips, carrots, onion or scallions, and chickpeas. Add the yogurt, salt, and pepper. Toss to coat. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Sources: Encyclopedia of Jewish Food (Gil Marks, 2010); Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities around the World (Gil Marks, 2004)