Celeriac is one of those vegetable that has baffled me for years. I mean, it looks so ugly. Some time back I attended a cooking demonstration and the chef won me over to the joys of celeriac, but with one of the most unhealthy vegetable recipes I think I've ever eaten. He made a delicious puree, but it had soooo much butter in it.
Well, celeriac is in every supermarket and grocery store in Prague at the moment so I decided I should do something with it. Yesterday I made soup. Gordon Ramsay's Celeriac, Apple and Stilton soup to be precise - or at least a variation of it! I didn't have any fresh thyme. I didn't even have any dried thyme, so I ended up sifting some Zaatar to remove the sesame seeds and using that! I didn't have any Stilton either. But I did have a chunk of blue cheese in my fridge (anyone who knows me well will know that I always have chunks of blue cheese in my fridge).
So here's what you do.
Fry a chopped onion gently in a mixture of butter and olive oil, until it's softened. Add 700 g diced celeriac and 350 g diced potatoes. Don't worry too much when you're chopping them up. You basically just want the pieces to be about the same size so that they cook evenly. They don't need to look pretty - you're going to puree the whole thing at the end. Season with salt and pepper and add a handful of thyme - just the leaves. Or a small amount of dried thyme if you don't have the fresh stuff. Then add 1.2 litres of vegetable stock. I used a veggie stock powder.
Simmer the stock with the potato and celeriac until it's tender - about 20 minutes.
Add two diced apples - peel them and core them first. And the juice of half a lemon. Simmer for about another 5 minutes until the apple softens. Then grab a stick blender and make it all smooth. If you want it to be super-smooth, pass the blended soup through a sieve. It will be super-velvety - probably worth doing if you're cooking it for someone you want to impress. Though probably most people won't even notice.
Check the seasoning, and make sure it's hot enough. Throw in a handful of chopped parsley - Gordon Ramsay specifies the curly kind, which is good because that's all I could find at the supermarket yesterday. And then add about 75g of crumbled Stilton (or other yummy blue cheese). Taste and adjust the seasoning (that is, add more lemon juice, salt or pepper if you need them). Serve with extra crumbled Stilton on top. It would probably be nice to have a really crisp, crunchy wholemeal bread roll with this too ...
Well, celeriac is in every supermarket and grocery store in Prague at the moment so I decided I should do something with it. Yesterday I made soup. Gordon Ramsay's Celeriac, Apple and Stilton soup to be precise - or at least a variation of it! I didn't have any fresh thyme. I didn't even have any dried thyme, so I ended up sifting some Zaatar to remove the sesame seeds and using that! I didn't have any Stilton either. But I did have a chunk of blue cheese in my fridge (anyone who knows me well will know that I always have chunks of blue cheese in my fridge).
So here's what you do.
Fry a chopped onion gently in a mixture of butter and olive oil, until it's softened. Add 700 g diced celeriac and 350 g diced potatoes. Don't worry too much when you're chopping them up. You basically just want the pieces to be about the same size so that they cook evenly. They don't need to look pretty - you're going to puree the whole thing at the end. Season with salt and pepper and add a handful of thyme - just the leaves. Or a small amount of dried thyme if you don't have the fresh stuff. Then add 1.2 litres of vegetable stock. I used a veggie stock powder.
Simmer the stock with the potato and celeriac until it's tender - about 20 minutes.
Add two diced apples - peel them and core them first. And the juice of half a lemon. Simmer for about another 5 minutes until the apple softens. Then grab a stick blender and make it all smooth. If you want it to be super-smooth, pass the blended soup through a sieve. It will be super-velvety - probably worth doing if you're cooking it for someone you want to impress. Though probably most people won't even notice.
Check the seasoning, and make sure it's hot enough. Throw in a handful of chopped parsley - Gordon Ramsay specifies the curly kind, which is good because that's all I could find at the supermarket yesterday. And then add about 75g of crumbled Stilton (or other yummy blue cheese). Taste and adjust the seasoning (that is, add more lemon juice, salt or pepper if you need them). Serve with extra crumbled Stilton on top. It would probably be nice to have a really crisp, crunchy wholemeal bread roll with this too ...
No comments:
Post a Comment