I feel that I have been so hesitant with all root vegetables. I was so worried about kale that I really should have been worried about what was growing underneath the kale. I know I usually just roast or sauté the vegetables the latter half of the week but that is the best way to get a taste of the vegetable itself. I had such a hard time trying to get that celeriac taste from the hash with all the potatoes that were mixed in there. I didn’t want to just toss these in olive oil and call it a day though so I was glad to find this recipe from Bon Appétit.
It was actually fairly serendipitous that the recipe calls for walnut oil because I had some leftover from baking bread this past Christmas. I have only ever used it for a very specific cinnamon apple loaf and I was thrilled to find out it could be used for this. It also just sounded like a great idea to mix walnuts and celery(ish) flavors together like it would turn out to be a warm salad or something along those lines.
I was super glad to not have to shred anything either like the hash. My hands are still sore from that.
I love to see the patterns on the inside of the root where you can almost tell where new growth was going to happen before it was harvested. If I still had a seventh grade biology book I would be all about finding the different parts of the root and the inside bits so I could call them by their proper name and not just inside bits.
I tried a little nibble of raw celeriac and it does not taste like celery. It has the texture of a raw potato but not too strong of any kind of flavor which is weird considering how fragrant the thing is, you’d think it would correlate to some kind of taste.
I know a few pieces look a bit burnt but they definitely did not taste burnt. I finally got to taste the celeriac! It was vaguely a celery flavor which was surprising considering the raw bite I tried, but it had a texture like a turnip. I’m going to go on a limb and just state that all root vegetables will most likely have the same texture, but I feel all root vegetables in my mind stem from a turnip so I’ll keep referencing that when I can, thank you very much.
It was good! I may not make it again but they were tasty! I had to add vinegar at the end while they were still warm and toss the mix up in with that, which is something I wish I did with the turnips, but now I wish I didn’t with these. I couldn’t really tell a difference after using the walnut oil compared to olive oil but maybe I just need to try more of it to get a good sense of it. The toasted walnuts really helped get my mind off of the turnip texture and maybe they’re the reason I had to use walnut oil anyway, but they somehow work together with the celeriac.
Between this and the hash, I vote you definitely try celeriac this way and you won’t be disappointed, especially if you’re just not into root vegetables.
Try 52 