January Veg of the Month - Celeriac

I have decided to feature a different vegetable each month and January 2014 it will be the celeriac.  Celeriac is not a well known vegetable and I have seen people point to its ugly round shape and wonder what it is.

It has a distinct celery flavour as it is a relative but is a plant grown for its root rather than the more well recognised celery which is grown for it's stalks and leaves.

My first recipe is a new one for me, a recipe that I saw recently in an issue of BBC Good Food magazine for baking a whole celeriac in the oven.

They are quite large and rather ugly but have a sweet flavour reminiscent of delicate celery

Soak the roots in water and then scrub off all the dirty bits and cut off the straggly bits.

Rub the root with about 1-2 Tablespoons of olive oil and place on a piece of foil.

Scatter with a bulb of garlic broken into cloves and sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme (from my allotment!). Tightly wrap the foil around the root and bake in the oven at 180oC/350oF/Gas 4 for about two hours and possibly another 30 minutes if a knife doesn't go through the middle easily.

When the vegetable is soft slice off the top and squeeze the garlic cloves on top, sprinkle with salt&pepper and a know of butter and mix in.

Let everyone help themselves.

The next recipe is my own, I often make a Sunday soup and wanted to use up the leftover celeriac.  I started with chopped onion, 3 small carrots and a potato and sauteed them in olive oil until the onion started to go translucent. 

then chucked in the remainder of the celeriac after I had peeled the outside skin off.

I also added the beetroot tops from the bunch of beetroot I got in the market yesterday and some of the red chard form the rainbow chard from the allotment.

I topped the vegetables with vegetable stock water and added salt&pepper and let it cook until the carrots and potato pieces were soft.

Take the pot off the heat and let cool for 4-5 minutes then I used my stick blender to blend the soup, stopping before it was too smooth so that there was a little bit of texture. A few drops of smoked chipotle Tabasco sauce and taste!

This made a really warming and tasty soup which will be taken to work by Mr R and myself for lunch this week.

Celeriac is sold by the kilo and this one cost me £1.20 which made a vegetable for Sunday lunch and the basis of the soup.

Next week I shall be reporting on another celeriac recipe and a few more facts about this rather unknown vegetable.  Would you try this versatile vegetable? Please leave a comment below whether or not you would and what you would use it for.