When my mother started a new celery stalk she’d cut about 3/8” off the bottom to make it easy to separate the ribs. She’d give the cut-off piece to me or my brother to munch. I thought it was the tastiest part of the entire stalk, but there wasn’t much of it.

So where was I going with this… oh yeah… celeriac, AKA celery root. It’s really good. Tastes much like that delicious little piece that mom cut off, and there’s LOTS of it. Celeriac doesn’t seem to be very popular nowadays. Possibly because the gnarly-looking rind puts people off – they don’t know how to deal with it:


But it’s not hard; here’s how I do it. I put the bulbous root on my cutting board. I grasp the ribs as a handle to keep the root stable. Then I begin by cutting off a thin slice off the very bottom and discard it. Then 1/2” slices, working back towards the ribs:


Then I trim the rind off the slices with my knife, dice them, and put the diced pieces into a 1-qt Corelle bowl:


Then I set the bowl into my stovetop pressure cooker and cook the celeriac to tenderness. When I take the bowl out the celeriac smells sooo good! Then I add seasoning salt, black pepper, garlic butter, and mix. It tastes as good as it smells.

The greens are good too, but they’re surprisingly tough (even the leaves) and need cooking to tenderise them. They require about the same amount of cooking as the root, so cooking root and greens together is another good option. Here, I’ve done just that:


The greens tend towards bitter – a flavor aspect that I like. But it means that folks that don’t like Brussels sprouts probably won’t like celeriac greens. But I think nearly all folks will like the root.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Pipe Smoker,

I discovered it whilst doing a fair amount of Polish dishes. It's pretty common there apparently. I liked it so much I planted some last year and will again this year.

There used to be an amazingly good little restaurant close to my house, run by two sisters who did catering. My favorite thing there was a fantastic and rich silky-smooth potato/celeriac puree they served as a side on many plates.

It makes for great soup.

Nor do you see Kohlrabi often.

I like it and Rutabaga as well.

I just got out my seed catalogs ( I rarely throw them out) and am making notes to order these less common vegetables.

Jerusalem Artichokes to start with…

Come to think of it I always grow the same thing every year, I should try different things now.

And I think I’ll order the newest edition of Rare Seeds dot com catalog.

Great topic, thanks for posting it.
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quote:

Originally posted by MelissaDallas:
There used to be an amazingly good little restaurant close to my house, run by two sisters who did catering. My favorite thing there was a fantastic and rich silky-smooth potato/celeriac puree they served as a side on many plates.

Here’s a 5’ 39” video “How to make celeriac purée”. The guy’s sing-song speaking style is annoying though.
https://youtu.be/DG0beZ1ZVlQ

It's really good mashed with potato like 50/50, my son and I made Beef Bourguignon together served with celery root/potato puree and it was delicious.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
It's really good mashed with potato like 50/50, my son and I made Beef Bourguignon together served with celery root/potato puree and it was delicious.

My wife does it this way also. It’s great.

I learned something new today. Seen in the store but just ignored and moved on since had not bother to do some research.

Family favorite here making Beef Bourguignon so will try next time with the 50/50 mixture. Also going to pressure cook the root and leaves together too ... that looks great !