What says winter more than fermented sour turnip (similar to sauerkraut)?

I believe I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this blog needs more salad recipes! I love salads and I recently came up with this combination for curly endive winter salad with sour turnip, which is amazing and perfect for winter time, so here it is if you want to try it. This one is a properly balanced meal by itself, with eggs as a good source of protein, a lot of fresh vegetables and fibre and very healthy fermented sour turnip, which is a Balkan winter staple.

You may be more familiar with sour cabbage or sauerkraut in German – turnip is lacto-fermented in the same way and usually comes in long, grated noodle-ish slices. It is often used cooked in winter stews, like for example in Slovenian jota, for which I’ve already published a recipe. It tastes great completely raw too, dressed with just a bit of olive oil and black pepper, which is how it is used in this recipe with the addition of winter savory, another interesting and often overlooked herb.

endive winter salad with sour turnip Recipe

Ingredients

• 150 g (1 medium head) curly endive, also known as chicory or frisée
• 2 eggs
• 150 g (1.5 cup) fermented sour turnip
• 30 g (0.5 cup diced) leek
• 1 medium-sized apple
• 1 – 2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon dried winter savory herb
• 1/2 teaspoon grated black pepper
• salt

1 serving as a main course salad bowl

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 15 minutes for the hard-boiled eggs

Instructions

First, put the eggs in a pot with water and set them to boil on the stove until hard-boiled. Meanwhile, wash and chop the curly endive, wash, core and dice the apple and the leek into desired pieces (I like to dice my leek into very fine pieces and slice the apples into larger thin slices). Peel the eggs and slice them into quarters. Put the chopped curly endive, leek, apple and sour turnip into a large salad bowl, then dress with olive oil, black pepper, winter savory and salt to taste. Toss the salad until everything has mixed well, then add the eggs on top and enjoy! Serve with a slice of rye bread if needed.

Notes

If fermented sour turnip is not available in your country, you can just boil some turnips and leave them soaked in any kind of neutral flavoured vinegar overnight. It won’t be the same, but it can come close. Since the turnip is already sour, there is no need to add extra vinegar to this salad’s dressing, but you can if you want to.

So, what do you think? Fancy a quickly prepared, delicious endive winter salad?

Download printable PDF here