Please enlighten me. I bought some celery root once, found a recipe on the internet and cooked it according to the instructions. It was inedible. Literally like chewing on tree bark. Ended up throwing it in the garbage. I assumed that I had picked a bad specimin and since I don’t know what a good one should look or feel line I haven’t tried again. I love to try new things especially new veggies because I eat fresh vegetables often and get bored with the same old selections. Any tips on picking out a good celery root. I’m more than willing to try again.
+1 on the homemade pasta.
and on letting the meat cook until it releases. Requires patience and a certain amount of faith but it’s well worth it.
That reminds me of the time I tried Jerusalem artichokes. I saw a recipe for them in my Betty Crocker cookbook and figured I’d give them a try.
I must say I didn’t care for them. They had an extremely intense flavor. Almost hot. I was able to get through about half of the portion, but I have to give up and throw them away.
I don’t know if anyone else will come across this problem, but it was an epiphany for me.
Every time I’ve made an Indian recipe that called for yogurt to be stirred into the sauce, the yogurt curdles on me. It finally occurred to me to ask Google why the heck this happened (duh!), and I got my answer:
Use full-fat yogurt. I was using nonfat. The fat emulsifies the protein molecules in the yogurt and holds them apart so they don’t get together in the heat and form curds. Also, let the yogurt come to room temperature before you start cooking with it and stir a bit of cornstarch into it to stabilize it.
Armed with this knowledge, I’m going to tackle my kofta (meatball) curry recipe again. It tasted spectacular the first time around, but the sauce looked unappetizingly curdly rather than creamy.
velvetjones: Sounds like you’re in for another epiphany, in that case. Sounds like you might not have prepared it quite right.
When it comes to celery root, the trick is to cut off all the outside skin and then slice very very thinly, grate it, dice it, or cut into julienne sticks (doesn’t matter which, really, so long as you’re making smallish pieces). Rub it with lemon juice as you go, too, because the exposed surface turns brown very quickly.
My favourite preparation is to boil with an equal amount of potatoes until soft (~10 mins), drain and then puree with butter and milk/cream. Just like mashed potatoes, but with a subtle je-ne-sais-quoi. It’s really good raw, too… make a salad by slicing into matchsticks or very thin slices, and then toss with a dressing made from lemon juice (or apple cider vinegar), olive oil, grainy mustard and honey. Nom nom nom.
Apparently the smaller celery roots tend to be less bitter than the big ones, and you want one that’s relatively heavy for its size and that feels quite firm.
Labrador, even though fresh and dried pasta are actually very different things, they’re usually used the same way once cooked… so I’d consider one to be the equivalent of the other.
It’s sort of like saying that once I discovered steel-cut oats, I never went back to quick-cook rolled oats (same grain and eaten the same way once cooked, but totally different in every other way)
Bad example. Quick-cook rolled oats are a convenience food that was developed as a substitute for actual pin oats. Dried vs. fresh pasta is more analogous to biscuits vs. dinner rolls. They’re just different.
I got the local farmers to start growing them years ago for the farmers market.
Amazing.
Fresh turnips are a wonderful apple like snack.
No need to worrie about cast iron. The “seasoning” is not going anywhere. Just use it regularly and you can even chuck them in the dishwasher. Trust me i have hundreds of pounds of the stuff and use them in my restaurant and at home.
IT IS CAST FUCKING IRON YOU WIL NOT RUIN IT?
Plus it is cheap so if you do figure a way just buy more.
Sounds like you might not have prepared it quite right.