Celeriac
Enough with the salads already, let’s get on to a really ugly root vegetable: celeriac (celery root). The extent of my use of this little gem had been primarily as a flavor component to mashed potatoes or just by itself in a puree as a sauce. It played a background or an addition to a dish
After the wife made a surprisingly good cabbage soup (I say this only because I’ve never been impressed a cabbage soup recipe, not to critique her soup making skills which are often better than mine), I decided to take the celery root and give it front and center stage for a soup. On top of that, I decided to forgo relying on a canned vegetable stock (we’ve run out of our frozen batch) and just use water (as suggested, rather sternly, by Mr. Ruhlman). The absence of the stock, which tends to tint things a bit as I use stock with some tomato in it, gave the soup a very bright white appearance which I found visually appealing. I had to dig out my non-white dishes, though!
A bit of white wine, onion, potato, the aforementioned star, some cream cheese, cream, bay leaf, thyme, carraway seeds, truffle oil and micro-greens later, the result is… not finished yet. It was good, but not perfect. A bit too rich and missing something, though I’m not sure what. I enjoyed it. The daughter enjoyed it. My wife took a batch to work for lunch. It’s just not ready for a recipe yet.
Tricks to try when preparing celeriac:
- use a super-sharp knife to trim the skin, or a serrated knife
- Don’t cut the tops off; use them as a handle if they’re healthy enough (cut and discard before cooking)
- have a water bath with a touch of acid ready; very few, if any vegetables oxidize faster than this one
- slice in thin slices rather than cubes; I’ve found these cook more evenly
Bon appetit!