Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Celery Root Magic


Tasty soup from a celery root
We love cooking with the seasons. It lets us have a huge variety of food during the year and feel good about indulging ourselves intensely during brief veggie seasons (Ah those ramps! Ah those peas! Ah those tomatoes!).

In Wisconsin, the late fall and early winter vegetables last quite a bit longer. These are the keepers - the long storage vegetables that sustain us into January and, for a few, into February: cabbages, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, rutabagas, turnips, onions, beets, onions, garlic. The darkest days of winter are filled with these intensely earthy and intensely sustaining vegetables. I love them for their taste and I love them because they are so abundant locally.

The newest at our table, thanks to our CSA farmers, is celery root or celeriac. It is often a huge and ungainly looking beast of a root. But that flavor! It has a bright and spring-like celery taste that can substitute for celery in recipes or, better yet, shine out on its own. Peeling off the thick skin reveals a creamy, crunchy interior that begs you to make a soup or puree.

Here is one tasty way we have made this root.

Celery Root Soup
 - from Faye Levy's International Vegetable Cookbook (Warner Books, 1993)

This eastern European soup can be adjusted to reflect the weight of your celery root!

3/4# celery root, peeled, quartered and sliced 1/8" thick
3/4# boiling potatoes, peeled, quartered and sliced  14" thick
1 T oil or butter
1 medium onion chopped
2 c. chicken stock or 2 cups water w/ veggie bouillon
Salt and pepper to taste
1.5 c. milk (whole or 2%)

Saute the onion in fat over medium low heat until soft.  Add liquid and celery root, bring to a boil, cover and cook five minutes. Add potatoes and seasoning to taste. Cover and cook 25 minutes or until veggies are soft. Puree with an immersion blender. Add the milk off the heat. To reheat, microwave. Serve with crusty warm bread or a lefse round or two.

Makes 4 cups of soup.

P.S. If you want to add some additional substance, add some cooked wild rice and sauteed leeks to the soup. Heavenly!



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