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.
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
Irresistible
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!
I'm going to start experimenting more with celeriac because we both really like it and we've only ever made mash with it, would you believe. The top recipe looks interesting – ha, ha. I wonder where it's from. I hate it when that happens.
By the way, we've been in Turkey, on and off, for 7 years. I think you asked me that an age ago and I forgot to tell you. 🙂
I've never used kereviz..simply because until I found your blog I hadn't come across recipes…well to be honest I wasn't really looking. But your recipes are simple and they look delicious..so it's about time I added kereviz to my shopping list.
Thanks x
Hello Julia, hello Ayak! So nice to get yr comments. Yes, no news yet from the source of that recipe! Gosh 7 years, Julia! How brave of you to up sticks and come here! I hope you are v happy!
Ayak, Frances says YES she does indeed know you!! and indeed small world ….hope you enjoy your kereviz..
Well please pass on my good wishes to Frances next time you speak to her Claudia xxx
Sounds lovely! Celeraic strikes me as one of those things that has promise, but I haven't experimented with it much. We eat it raw in salads (it soaks up dressing nicely) and it's great in soups, but I was never very thrilled by the zeytinyağlı meze with kereviz…
I certainly will, Ayak!
Let me know what you think if you try these, Stranger….
We did the spiced kereviz last night. Yum! And thanks again!
Hi sarahworldcook! Wow that is very exciting indeed, especially since today has been a bit of a roller coaster because here in Turkey, blogspot has been banned. But I don't know what is happening: my husband just logged on to my website and shouted 'it's working, look!' How very weird. My very last post about the ban was posted by my sister in California!!!! But thank you very much for this award! I will take a look at the link asap ….
Claudia
Stranger: good for you!:))
What's going on with this ban then?? Can you access your blog?
C.