So, my farm share came in today, and it is FULL of turnips. Little young guys, with greens. Now, I am not normally a huge turnip eater - I just don’t usually buy them or anything, because I don’t really cook with them. Didn’t grow up eating them much, for that matter, except greens which I can’t stand.
So are young little turnips like that more sweet and tender? Are they more appropriate for one cooking method over another? What is your absolute favorite turnip recipe?
My favorite turnip recipe you already shot down. 
But steamed turnips with butter can be nice. I also dice them up and add them to stews and soups, just like I would potatoes.
If they’re really nice and young, they can be used raw like radishes - sliced into salads or grated into coleslaw
Slice.
Steam.
Butter.
Salt.
Eat.
In that order.
Drop the greens in there, too (whole). You might be pleasantly surprised–young turnip greens are different from old, stewed-with-bacon-grease turnip greens. People put them in stir-fry. You can always pick them out if you don’t like them.
ETA: If you slice the turnips, not only do they cook faster, but it also allows more surface area for holding onto the butter and salt. Or you can quarter them, ditto. Or you can steam them whole if you’re on some kind of anti-butter austerity program. 
So, and now I’m going to admit to you guys that while I cook a lot and cook “hardcore”, there’s some holes in what I cook mostly because my mom never did it - when you say steam, do you mean in that little holey insert thing? For how long? I own one of those things but have never used it.
Why, until tender of course! - which will depend on how thin or small you slice or cube your turnips. 10 minutes? Poke them with a fork and see.
You don’t have to use a little holey thing. You can just put them in a saucepan that has a matching (i.e. closely fitting) lid, put about an inch or two of water in there with them, bring it to a boil, put the lid on, turn it down to simmer, and–very important–DO NOT LEAVE THE KITCHEN.
Because that sucker will boil dry soon as you can say “I’ll just run upstairs to pee”, and you don’t wanna have to spend your evening scrubbing scorched turnips out of a pan with a Brillo pad.
So stand there and read a magazine or something, for a few minutes, until the turnip pieces are fork-tender. If you slice them in 1/4" slices as for scalloped potatoes, it won’t take long.
Tried throwing them in the bacon grease with the bacon I was frying to make quiche.
Accidentally flipped the spatula and burned the hell out of my face with bacon grease. Now harboring irrational turnip resentment.
That’s what I was going to suggest–cubing them and frying until brown in a bit of bacon grease. Sorry you got injured, I hope it is not serious.
You can mash them, just like potatoes. Cook in hot water (in the peel) until tender, let cool a couple of minutes while softening minced garlic in olive oil over low heat, then peel the turnips and mash everything together, plus salt and pepper. I wouldn’t try to go as smooth as the typical potato-buds puree-style “mash” — rustic is better. If the flavor’s too strong, you can temper it by throwing a couple of equivalent-sized potatoes in when you cook the turnips.
It’s ridiculous - the appearance is all way out of proportion to the amount of pain suffered. All you can see is a little red line by my eye, but I couldn’t sleep because it hurt too much. Much better today.
The bacon grease ones were kind of bitter - is that the skin? I didn’t know you were supposed to peel them.
You’re not. Assuming you have young turnips, of course. How “young” are they? How big are they–radish, golf ball, tennis ball? IME up to golfball size, they don’t need to be peeled, bigger than that, check with a potato peeler, if you can remove a noticeable woody “yuck” peel outer layer, or if you can dig a fingernail in and observe a kind of “yuck” outer layer, then they need to be peeled.
Otherwise, you just got yerself some bitter turnips there. It happens. Some turnips/rutabagas are more bitter than others. If you get another batch, and you steam or boil them, and they’re still bitter, then yeah, you just got some bitter turnips. You deal with bitter turnips by boiling them in changes of water–IME for young turnips, one change of water will do it. Slicing or dicing them helps, as opposed to cooking them whole.
They’re mostly golf ball sized, some smaller, some larger. I’ll take a closer look at them when I get home.
I picture you as one of the old men I grew up with, in your overalls, with a toothpick in your mouth that just floats there. “Ayuh. You got yourself some bitter turnips there.”
Try cubing and steaming or boiling them along with some carrots, and mashing the whole thing. The carrots should sweeten up the turnips, if they ain’t bitter. Ayup.
Here are some turnip recipes I gathered when I was getting a lot of them a few years ago. The last one I haven’t tried; it seems a little fancy-schmancy.
DIRK’S SWEET POTATO AND TURNIP SOUP
1 leek
1 medium red onion
1 large turnip (more would be good)
2 white potatoes
1 sweet potato
1 Tbl fresh chopped rosemary
2 quarts vegetable stock and/or water
salt and pepper to taste
Cut off dark green tops from leeks, rinse very thoroughly, and dice. Chop onion, and saute leeks and onion in the bottom of a large soup pot in a little water until soft. Peel and dice turnips and potatoes, and add to soup pot. Add a little stock and stew for 5 minutes, stirring gently. Add the rest of the stock and the rosemary, and simmer for 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are fully cooked. Puree about half of the soup in a food processor or blender, and return to the pot. Season to taste with salt and pepper, reheat, and serve.
Mother Earth/Mother Ocean Soup
3 onions, chopped, sauteed in 3 Tbsps olive oil
6 potatoes, cubed
2 carrots, sliced
2 parsnips, sliced
2 turnips, cubed
1/2 cup dried, wild greens
(I used dried nettles, which have lots of iron and vitamin C and can be found in our dried herb section. They have an interesting rich taste, a little like spinach.) 1/2 cup dried seaweed (any kind you want to try)
12 cups water
Cook in a large pot until vegetables are done, adding salt to taste at the end.
Golden Gratin of Carrots, Rutabagas, and Turnip
Butter for the dish
1 tablespoon butter
Bechamel Sauce for Gratins (see below)
12 ounces turnip, peeled and julienned
12 ounces rutabaga, peeled and cut into julienne strips
8 ounces carrots, peeled and julienned
1 cup fresh bread crumbs
Salt and freshly milled pepper
1 small onion, finely diced
Preheat the oven to 375’F. Lightly butter a 2-quart gratin dish. While the sauce is cooling, boil the rutabagas in salted water for 2 minutes and drain. Cook the onion in butter in a small skillet over medium heat, about 8 minutes; then combine with the rest of the vegetables. Season with salt and pepper and transfer to the gratin dish. Pour the sauce over the top, cover with the bread crumbs, and bake until bubbling and golden
on top, about 45 minutes.
Bechamel Sauce
2 cups milk (I subbed soy milk)
3/2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup finely diced onion
3/2 tablespoons flour
Aromatics: I bay leaf, 3 parsley sprigs, 2 thyme sprigs Salt and freshly milled white pepper Grated nutmeg
Heat the milk with the onion and aromatics in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Turn it off just before it boils and set aside for 15 minutes to steep.
In another saucepan, make the roux by melting the butter, adding the flour, and stirring constantly over medium heat for 2 minutes. Quickly pour the milk through a strainer into the roux and whisk until thickened. Stir until the sauce comes to a boil. Set the pan over very low heat or transfer to a double boiler.
Cook for 25 to 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste. If you’re not ready to use the sauce right away, lay a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface to prevent a skin from forming.
Granma.
With the garden gloves, and the hat. “Ayuh, honey, you got yerself some bitter turnips there. Come in the house and have some tea, and I’ll give you Great-Aunt Myrtle’s recipe for Turnip Cake, it’s the best thing in the world to do with bitter turnips…”
Nah - only old men are so terse as to say “You got yourself some bitter turnips. Ayuh. Bitter turnips.” And you sit there and wait for them to say something else, and they… don’t, unless it’s about the fabled bitter turnips of aught six.
Old women say, “Oh, honey, sometimes those turnips there just turn out bitter. Why, just the other day…”