We haven’t grown them for quite a few years so we are delighted to let you know that our celeriac are back! Have you tried one? They’re a gorgeous winter root vegetable. Big and bulbous and full of flavour. Think a hybrid between a potato and a parsnip with a delicate celery flavour. These beasts are stunning in soups and stews, but they also lend themselves nicely to coleslaw, in fact raw, grated celeriac is really gorgeous tossed with a mustardy mayonnaise. I’ll tell you about that another day. But today I am eating celeriac in thick slices, fried like a steak in lots of butter. I LOVE a vegetable steak (cauliflower, portobello, butternut…), it’s a great way to really highlight a vegetable and focus on the flavour. Serve with mashed beans and roasted garlic for lip-smackingly delicious, filling, protein, some wintery greens like kale or cabbage and a creamy wholegrain mustard sauce. Quite a special dish, fit for a date night, but really not very complex to make as you’ll see below. Enjoy!
Liz x
Ingredients (serves 2)
- 1 celeriac – peel with a small, sharp knife, then cut 4 thick slices out of the middle and save the ends for a soup
- 1 tin of butterbeans or cannellini beans, any white beans will work
- 1 whole bulb of garlic
- kale or cabbage, as much as you like
- 1 heaped tbsp wholegrain mustard
- 1 tbsp corn starch or plain flour
- oat milk – enough to loosen the pan juices into a thick sauce
- butter, olive oil, salt and pepper to taste
Method
- Pre-heat your oven to 200C. Pop a whole bulb of garlic (that’s right, the whole bulb, not just a clove) into a small, oven-proof dish with a drizzle of olive oil. Put it in the oven to bake until soft – around 15-20 minutes.
- Meanwhile prepare the celeriac as above, chop and rinse some greens (kale or cabbage go well here) and put them in a pot with a lid, some seasoning and some butter/oil on the hob. Drain some of the liquid from your tin of butterbeans and pop them into another small pan.
- Get your widest frying pan (or use two) on to a medium heat and melt a generous knob of butter with a couple of tbsp of olive oil. Add the celeriac steaks and season well with salt and pepper. Cook, turning occasionally until they are softening and turning a gorgeous caramel colour. They should smell amazing!
- When the celeriac are nearly cooked through, take the garlic out of the oven to cool slightly, turn the heat on under the pot of beans and the pot of greens. Cook both, stirring often, until piping hot. Then turn off the heat.
- Put the celeriac steaks in a small dish in the oven to keep warm (turn the oven down to 150C so they don’t burn) whilst you make the mash and the sauce.
- Pull apart the roasted garlic and squeeze the soft, fragrant flesh into the pan with the beans. Season well with salt and pepper, add a drizzle of olive oil or a knob of butter and mash the beans and garlic into a puree. Or use a stick blender if you’d like your mash extra smooth. Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed.
- To the frying pan in which the celeriac steaks were cooked, add a tbsp of flour and a tbsp of wholegrain mustard. Whisk into the buttery, caramelised, celeriac juices that are left in the pan and add a splash of oat milk. Turn the heat up and keep whisking and adding milk until you have a silky, creamy sauce. Taste and season with salt and pepper and now you are ready to serve.
- Divide the greens and garlicky mash between two plates, add on the steaks then drizzle with the sauce. Have extra wholegrain mustard on the table and enjoy with a glass of wine or a cold beer.
