Celery root, also called celeriac by some people, is a vegetable grown for its big round root. It sort of resembles a turnip or rutabaga, but with a rougher skin. It has a flavor similar to the flavor of celery stalks, but sweeter. And of course the texture is completely different.
I've used céleri-rave like carrots or potatoes, cut up and cooked in potées (boiled dinners) and stews, including blanquette de veau, d'agneau, ou de dinde, and it's good. I also like to make céleri rémoulade, which is grated raw celery root dressed with a mixture of cream, mayonnaise, and Dijon mustard and eaten as a salad. That's a classic.
But what about roasting a whole celery root in the oven? It turns out to be really good. You scrub the outisde of celery root thoroughly, rub or brush it with (olive) oil, sprinkle on some herbs (fresh or dried), salt and pepper it, and then wrap it tightly in aluminum foil. Just before you close the foil, put a few sliced, pressed, or crushed garlic cloves in, along with a pat or two of butter, and seal it all up. Roast it in the oven for about 2 hours at 350ºF (180ºC). Test it with a skewer to make sure it's cooked all the way through before you unwrap it.
Serve it in thick slices with, maybe, a cream sauce or mushroom sauce. If you want to peel it, either before cooking it or after, you can do that too. You might also cut off the top of the celery root, hollow it out, and put the herbs, garlic, and butter in there. That would flavor the interior of the celery root really well, I think.
We had our roasted celery root with a creamy mushroom sauce and an oven roasted saucisse de Toulouse, which is a pork sausage with a filling that is, traditionally, made with meat chopped with a knife rather than run through a meat grinder. It's about my favorite French sausage, along with the smoked Montéliard sausages from eastern Frence. The one in my pictures is called a saucisse brasse, meaning it isn't cut into links before cooking, but left the length of an arm (un bras).
I'll dig a celeriac up later....
ReplyDeletethis looks amazing!
It wasn't as glossy as yours....
Deleteor as browned....
but is went very well with chard...
and some red cabbage and apple...
some english-style mashed spuds...
and a fillet of John Dory.
it will most certainly be cooked again!!
It kept all the flavour of the cleriac in...
I never tried that, it should be good. One of these days...
ReplyDeleteYou keep educating me; I love it! I've often wondered how to use celeriac and roasting it sounds practically perfect in every way!
ReplyDeleteI'm going to hunt a celeriac up- I'll try Publix first and make this asap. Just back from NYC where my vegetarian daughter mistakenly ate a bit of fried pig's ear in a new restaurant called Maysville in the Flat Iron district. It was served on flatbread atop a mix of kale, etc. She was not happy lol.
ReplyDeleteBonjour Ken,
ReplyDeleteLooks like you did not remove the peel before roasting and i would like to know whether it softens like a roasted potato peel. Thanks.
The skin does soften, like the skin of a baked potato.
DeleteI love remoulade, and have never had baked root. Can one eat the skin after it is baked? Your meal looks delish.
ReplyDeleteWe did eat the skin of the celery root, Christine. The bottom was a little over-brown and we might have cut away a little of that, but the rest was fine. I guess the most important this is to make sure the root is scrubbed really well to get any sand off of it.
Deletewha a deliciuos meal
ReplyDeletehad no idea u could cook it this way....u can also do a whole cauliflower like that too....one of my favorite hangouts in Biarritz was Les Halles, which was spectacular....a real treat for me....I volunteered to go seek out stuff for dinner any time I could ....involved a bit of a hike but I used my daughter's rolling cart & felt like a native....and the vendors couldnt have been nicer....even answering questions about preparation....(when I bought duck confit legs)...I need to go to grocery today to re-stock after 5 weeks and I'm kinda depressed
ReplyDelete