Pickled Turnips

Ingredients

3 cups (750 ml) water
1/3 cup (70 g) Kosher salt or sea salt. (Do NOT use table salt!)
1 bay leaf
1 cup (250 ml) white vinegar
2 pounds (1 kg) turnips, peeled and cut into long, thick, chip-like slices (Rutabaga and turnip, same thing? Not quite!)
1 small beetroot, peeled and cut into long, thick, chip-like slices
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced

Directions

In a saucepan, heat half the water, salt, and bay leaf, stirring occasionally until the salt dissolves. Remove from heat, add the vinegar and second half of the water, and stir.
While the brine cools to room temperature, cut the turnips and the beetroot into thick long slices. Layer them with the garlic into a large, clean jar.
Pour the brine (including the bay leaf) into the jar, ensuring everything is submerged.
Cover and let sit at room temperature, in a relatively cool place, for one week. After that, they can be refrigerated. These will keep for several weeks in the fridge, but we usually eat all of them within a month.

My Notes

I use 2 x 1 litre glass kilner clip-top jars for this, but you can halve the recipe if needed. To keep all the vegetables submerged, I use a small glass jar (without the lid, open side up and filled with brine to add weight), in place of a fermentation weight. It takes about 3 days before we’re happy with the taste and we put the jar in the fridge.

If you can’t find fresh beetroot, I’ve used cooked beetroot in a pinch but it won’t give you the usual deep pink colour. (Our local shops sell cooked and peeled beetroot, 5 or 6 in a sealed bag. I use 1 for this recipe, and make Beetroot Salad with the others.)
I’ve also used white wine vinegar, and other recipes say you can use apple cider vinegar, or a mixture of these. I don’t really notice a huge difference either way so I use whatever I have in the house at the time.
You can also use a mixture of turnip and Mooli/Daikon radish, in your preferred ratio.