Turnips Anna ⁑

Perhaps my favorite preparation of potatoes is Pommes Anna, a classic French dish of thinly sliced, ornately layered potatoes cooked in a very large amount of melted butter. But, alas, I can no longer enjoy this dish due to its high carbohydrate and fat content. Luckily, I ran across a recipe for Turnips Anna in Sunset magazine while waiting in my doctor’s office for a routine checkup. But it, too, required too much butter and bacon fat for my diet. So (naturally) I decided to orient its ingredients toward a reduced fat, lower glycemic index version.

  • 1 tbsp <butter>
  • 6 rashers bacon, cooked† and crumbled
  • ½ cup Asiago cheese, grated
  • 2 tbsp low carbohydrate flour mix†
  • ½ tsp minced fresh thyme leaves, or ¼ dried thyme
  • ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 tbsp powdered butter substitute
  • Olive oil cooking spray
  • 1 lb turnips, peeled

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Meanwhile, heat the butter in a non-stick sauté pan until melted and rotate the pan to coat the sides and bottom evenly.

Combine crumbled bacon, cheese, thyme, butter substitute, pepper, and flour in a bowl.

Using a mandoline, thinly slice the turnips. Starting in the center of the sauté pan, arrange a layer of the sliced turnips in concentric overlapping circles to the edge of the pan. Place a ring of turnips around the edge of the pan.

Evenly sprinkle the flour-cheese-bacon-herb mixture over the turnip layer and lightly coat with the olive oil spray.

Continue to build up layers of turnips sprinkled with the powdered mixture and sprayed with olive oil, until there are no more turnips.

Cover with foil and bake in the middle rack of the oven 30–40 minutes until richly browned on bottom and sides.

Remove the pan from the oven, remove the foil, and place back in the oven for another 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool 5 minutes.

Loosen the turnips from the bottom of the pan using a rubber spatula and then invert onto a heated serving plate. Cut into wedges and serve.

Serves 4.