Two More Celeriac Recipes

I hope you are in the mood for celeriac/kereviz because that's on the menu today!

I was going through my old 2010 diary the other day looking for a number when my glance fell upon a recipe for Spiced Celeriac with Lemon that I must have jotted down in extremis judging by the state of the scribble. I looked at it more closely and rather alarmingly had no recollection whatsoever of who had given it to me or when let alone where so if you recognize it as YOURS, do let me know because I’ve made it and am passing it on! That lemon tang and spicy flavour combine beautifully to make an unusual delicious meze.

Spiced Celeriac with Lemon

Ingredients

1 large celeriac/kereviz

Zest of 1 lemon

Juice of 1 ½ lemons

Paprika, pepper, and cinnamon

Olive oil for frying

100 ml/ half a cup water

Method

·         Peel and cut the celeriac into long, thin sticks (julienne).

·         Heat 3 tbsps olive oil in a pan and gently fry for about 15 minutes till slightly browned.

·         Sprinkle with paprika, pepper, and cinnamon. Stir in zest of 1 lemon, the juice of 1 ½ lemons and the water and simmer for about 10 minutes.

·         Arrange decoratively in a shallow dish and serve at room temperature.

 Lovely warming Celeriac Soup is my second recipe: I made it this morning.

This time I had been riffling through Refika’s book again when I saw a Celeriac Soup recipe. Ah, I thought but when I looked closer I saw that it was a ringer for My Colourful Winter Vegetable Soup with the addition of 2 kereviz.

The other ingredients are the usual winter ones ie 1 potato, 1 onion, 1 carrot, plus those 2 celeriacs which I simply  peeled and chopped up, put in a saucepan, covered with cold water and gently boiled for about 15 minutes. I added 1 chicken stock cube.  No oil or butter in this one.  In order to make it  a bit different, I thought I would change the consistency. Out came my trusty stick blender and I blitzed all the cooked vegetables in the saucepan. Without any additions of flour or other thickening agents, it is the perfect velvety consistency with an appealing creamy colour.

 I have just had it for lunch with a wedge of lemon on the side and a sprinkle of flaked red pepper. If this was a cookery book, it would say 'serve with crusty bread'. I didn't have any but I can show you a picture of great crusty bread:

warm and fragrant

I took these photos when I recently visited Şirince (pron: shi/rin/jay), an old village originally inhabited by Greeks very near to Selçuk.  Of course I couldn't resist buying one of these loaves! Note their unusual shape. The bread was actually much better toasted than fresh and survived the flight back to Istanbul, vying for space with my washbag in my case!



irresistible



If you like celeriac, you can also check  two of my previous posts: Celeriac Carpaccio  and  the more traditional Zeytinyağlı Kereviz/ Celeriac in Olive Oil .

Afiyet Olsun!

Seasonal Celeriac: a Meze

Celeriac is such an odd looking vegetable, round and knobbly, with  a delicate taste and a powerful smell which tends to linger in a not unpleasant fashion.  When I first set eyes on it, I had no idea what on earth it was,  let alone what to do with it as we certainly never had it at home when I was growing up. Apparently it was originally classified as a herb, full of vitamins and mineral salts, and highly valued for its medicinal properties, but over the centuries, it has taken two very distinctive forms through selected breeding: one is what we know as celery, with frondy leaves and crunchy stalks, which hardly exists here; and the other is commonly known as a root vegetable like the carrot or turnip although it is actually a corm, the celeriac. In Turkish there is only word for both varieties: kereviz.  At this time of year, it is most commonly used in this olive oil dish but can also be grated into salads either on its own or with carrots, used to flavour soups,  or made into gratins and delicious creamy mashes with potatoes.  I had it in my head to look out for them at my weekly market yesterday as despite the warm sun, autumn is in the air: I was not disappointed. There they were, along with mountains of cabbages and cauliflowers, pumpkins and pomegranates, heralds of the colder months which lie ahead.

Ingredients for Zeytinyağlı Kereviz/Celeriac in Olive Oil

Serves  8

4 medium celeriac

2 carrots

2 medium potatoes

1 onion

3 sugar lumps

¼ cup olive oil

Juice of 1 lemon

1 cup hot water

1 gently heaped tbsp salt

Method

1.       Put the juice of half the lemon and 2 cups of water into a pyrex bowl.  Trim and peel the celeriac, cut into rounds a little thinner than your finger, halve these, and place in the bowl. Trim and scrape the carrots, then using a fork, make a pattern as in the picture. Peel and cube the potatoes. Peel and chop the onion quite finely. Wash all of them and put into the acidulated water along with the celeriac so that none of them discolour.

preparing the carrots

the chopped vegetables and the kereviz in the lemon water



2.       Drain all the vegetables and put them in a wide pan along with the salt, sugar, remaining lemon juice, olive oil, and 1 cup of hot water. Cover with a lid and cook on a low heat for 40 minutes till the vegetables are soft.

everything is here



3.       Leave to cool in the pan before transferring to a serving dish.

zeytinyağlı kereviz

Traditionally this kereviz dish is eaten as a second course, after a hot dish, but it also makes a fine starter which is easier carefully served with a slotted spoon onto individual plates.  A little of the cooking liquid can be spooned over each.

Tips

§  The lemon and water is to keep the peeled kereviz white so don’t leave them exposed to the air too long as they will turn an unappetising brown!

§  I did prepare the carrots with the fork as required in this particular recipe by Alev Kaman in Modern Türk Mutfağı , but it is certainly not essential. They can simply be sliced in thin rounds or on the diagonal.

§  As with many zeytinyağlı dishes, I always feel the urge to grind some pepper over the finished dish, for aesthetics as much as anything. However, this is not part of Turkish cooking. In traditional restaurants one doesn’t find pepper mills: these are part and parcel of the upmarket places offering meals with a western twist, which is also why for a very long time it was nigh on impossible to find a decent pepper mill here!



irresistible market bouquets!



A Delicious Aubergine Meze





How do you feel about aubergines?  Look at this, bubbling away, looking great, smelling great.

I don’t think my dad ever really enjoyed them, he didn’t like garlic either, but then it wasn’t his fault as they were certainly not a feature of pre-war Britain’s cuisine, let alone Grandma Beatrice’s kitchen! Probably his first encounter with aubergine was in ratatouille which my French mother occasionally made. And then there was moussaka – remember that? Rather greasy, I always thought.  But onions, garlic, tomatoes, all the vegetables that I have come to embrace, were not where my dad’s gastro inclinations lay by nature, strict meat and two veg man that he was. Cooking has come such a long way since those days and for me, living in Turkey has opened up a huge range of possibilities with vegetables and aubergines definitely provide a focus. There are literally hundreds of recipes for them in various forms, hot and cold, and I love them all, providing not too much oil is involved.

This recipe, ekşili patlıcan, taken from Secrets of the Turkish Kitchen is for a meze, the concept we are all now familiar with: small appetizers set on the table at the same time before the main course, and an excuse to drink rakı, the delicious aniseed-flavoured local drink.  I suggest you include it as a side dish along with whatever you’re having as a main. If you glance through the ingredients, you will see all the familiar veggies that characterise so many Mediterranean dishes, not only Turkish. Aubergines are in reality a summer vegetable but they are still available, just a little bit more expensive. Ekşili literally means sour, which does not sound very appealing, but what it actually means is cooked with lemon juice.

                                                          Ingredients

Serves 4 – 6

4 long aubergines

2 onions, thinly sliced

3 tomatoes, peeled and chopped

6 cloves garlic, crushed in salt

½ cup olive oil

Juice of 1 lemon

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

Chopped parsley for garnish

getting things ready: the tomatoes will be covered with boiling water

keeping only the red parts of the tomatoes and removing the white

Method

1.       Remove the stems and peel the aubergines in alternate vertical stripes. Cut into bite-size chunks and place in a bowl of salted water for 30 minutes.

2.       Drain the aubergines and squeeze dry in a towel. Place in a pan with the other ingredients. Cover and cook over a low heat until the aubergines are tender, most of the liquid has been absorbed and the sauce is rich.

3.       Set aside to cool and serve garnished with a sprinkling of chopped parsley.

ekşili patlıcan: serve at room temperature

                                                                  Tip

• Usually aubergines are a beautiful, dark, vibrant purple but there are other varieties, particularly in the countryside, which are pale and marbled. So the clue to choosing good ones is making sure they are smooth and shiny on the outside, as well as being firm to the touch.

They belong to the nightshade family and have a naturally occurring enzyme that can leave a bitter aftertaste in some dishes. Luckily, it is easy to ‘sweat’ them by salting which accomplishes two goals:

a) It pulls out the juices that carry bitter flavours and
b) Collapses the air pockets in the aubergines’ sponge-like flesh, thus preventing them from absorbing too much oil.

• Sprinkle slices or chunks of the aubergine with salt and let sit for  30 mins  - 1 hour. Incidentally, I notice that all the River House Cafe recipes recommend 1 hour as well as putting a plate on top with a heavy weight to push down on the slices.  Rinse the salt off with cold water and pat dry with kitchen paper. The drier they are, the less greasy the final result will be.

Personally I have found that the bitterness has become much less pronounced over the years but I would certainly advocate salting for any dish which requires frying in oil first as the amount of oil you use will definitely be less.

I also like peeling in stripes as in this recipe. The skin doesn’t become hard as it does when left whole.

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Here is an easy but delicious recipe for 6 from one of my favourite cookbooks, River Cafe Cook Book Green:  Take 4 large aubergines and slice into 1.5cm discs. Salt them as described above. Place close together on a foil-lined oven tray that you have lightly brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with salt, pepper, and some oregano/kekik, coriander seeds/kişniş tohumu roughly ground, and chopped garlic/sarmısak, and put in a pre-heated oven (200C/400F/Gas 6). Brush the tops of the slices with olive oil and scatter with more oregano, coriander, and garlic. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes. Turn the slices over when lightly browned, return to the oven and continue cooking for a few more minutes.

Serve on a bed of rocket /roka leaves. Drizzle with lemon juice and a little of your finest olive oil.

I like the sound of that!