Friday, February 25, 2011

A Chorus of Cs

So, two of the ingredients in my CSA were Celeriac and Celery.   Now, I'm not a huge fan of celery on its own, or stuff that tastes too 'celerilicious', so I was a little concerned... then a friend suggested I create a caponata.  (Love caponata).

So here is what I did:

Chopped an onion, smushed two cloves of garlic, diced them and added.   Three ribs of celery! [chopped]
One diced eggplant, two ripe peppers [used red and yellow], and a dollop of capers, followed by a bunch of olives.  All cooked together with a jar of tomatoes.  

YUM.

Now, the celeriac was an adventure.   I started to peel it, which always looks easy from pictures.  But it is a slippery knob, basically.   Hack, gouge, fountains of blood (kidding!), it was peeled.   Then came time to cut it up.   Got halfway through and...it flew!  Soared off and actually impaled itself on the rim of a pot on the floor.   Washed it off, started again.  Hack, curse, hack, swear, and actually got it cut into chunks.

Chopped up a leek and an onion, and a couple garlic cloves... (what?  I like my garlic!) tossed into a pot with a little olive oil, browned up, softened down.  Threw in the celeriac, with a ton of water, and cooked.

And cooked.

And cooked.

Finally got tender.   Added a sliced potato to cook, to add a little body.  And salt.  

Mushed it up with a potato masher, and added a little milk and a smidge of half and half.  (seriously, it was a smidge, less than lots of people use in coffee).

I finished it off with a couple chunks of pear...  for a sweet note to counteract some of the vegetal feel...

My only problem was that the celeriac got a little brown while cooking...and maybe a little lemon would have helped with that.

Very yummy.   Not great in the looks department, but you could always run it through a blender or food mill...

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