Celeriac love
- incl recipes for a simple celeriac cheese soup and a whopper of a celeriac pie
Towards the end of last night’s cookbook club session the conversation took a brief segue towards celeriac and what with the weather in the UK having taken a definite chilly turn too I thought now would be a good time to sing the praises of one of winter’s finest root veg: celeriac.
I often feel celeriac gets a bit neglected compared to the other roots: It’s not as easily sweet as carrots; doesn’t get the festive spotlight parsnips are about bathe in; isn’t the blank canvas of spuds. Added to the fact that celeriac can look like a lot of work: what to do with the tangle of roots? why does it have to be so….knobbly?!?
Here then are a few thoughts on how to love celeriac followed by two recipes at the polar ends of celeriac endeavour:
Celeriac soup with crumbly cheese - easy and fab
Deep celeriac, potato and gruyère pie - quite a lot of faff tbh but madly worth it
Shop / store
A celeriac should feel heavy for its size. Check that the skin feels firm.
Don’t wash soil off celeriac until it’s time to use it.
Prepping celeriac
If it’s particularly knobbly / muddy, sit the celeriac in a bowl of cold water for 10 minutes to encourage its soil to float away, then give it a rinse under cold water. It should hopefully now look like you don’t have to cut away quite so much of its roots to get at its flesh.
The skin is edible. If you don’t want to peel it just be sure to give it a good wash.
If you do want to peel it: celeriac skins are good for stocks.
Ways to use / flavour partners
Celeriac tends to make a sloppy mash. A 50/50 combo of celeriac to potato gives it firmer texture. Cook them separately, as the celeriac pieces will almost certainly become tender before the potato does; if they were together in the bubbling water you’d have over-cooked celeriac and be back to sloppy mash problems. I like to pop a chopped apple into the celeriac pan, too, to get mashed in.
Thin slices of (peeled or unpeeled) celeriac make for glorious gratins and dauphinoises. Celeriac is interchangeable with the potatoes you are more likely to see in recipes for those.
Try very thin slices of celeriac on top of some cheese on top of some puff pastry for a quick tart.
Roasting! Whole, or in wedges, or in chip-shaped batons.
Celeriac LOVES butter! And the deep spices like nutmeg, ginger, sumac….
This idea from Fergus Henderson and Justin Piers Gellatly’s The Complete Nose to Tail is hard to better: Make a buttery celeriac mash, spoon it into a baking dish and make indents to break eggs into. Season, add more butter, and bake.
(If you have Seasoning you’ll find plenty more ideas / tips / recipes in pages 214 - 221.)
