Cooking

Experiment with Celeriac!

I went to a friend’s place for lunch recently, unaware that their veggie garden had been exploding with a knobbly, ivory-coloured root throughout the autumn and winter months.

Before that day, I am ashamed to say I had never eaten celeriac. How my life was about to change!

The menu consisted of celeriac for entree,celeriac for main and celeriac for dessert. Boring perhaps? Not at all! Credit to my friends, who are extremely inventive in the kitchen, each dish left me wanting more.

The main meal consisted of roast lamb with potato and celeriac puree, (not to mention celery leaves added to the salad) and for dessert... drum roll please – the simple is best analogy came into play. I thought blue cheese and apple were heaven, but throw some raw celeriac into the mix and you’ll never produce a cheese platter without it.

Often I hear people say the white flesh tastes like radish, however I think the bulbous root-like vegetable (that actually belongs to the parsley family), has more of a delicate celery flavour – really not that surprising!

I found this wonderful Batavia lettuce salad with roast beef, horseradish and celeriac that you could try!

So experiment with celeriac (like my friends) and let me know what you come up with. I’m off to attempt a celeriac and apple crumble... wish me luck!

Enjoy your salads! Louise.

Join Louise on a journey through the seasons with salad ingredients, old traditions and popular, exotic or unusual vegetables. From Paddock to Plate founder, author, food writer, radio journalist & yoga teacher.