Conquer celery root with roasting and a classic sauce
Some vegetables seem to call out to me from their produce-aisle bins: “You know me and you love me,” the broccoli and the carrots and the peppers and the collards say, as the timed misters blanket their stacks in a fog. And it’s true: Kitchen experience lets you easily imagine the path from raw and whole to cut and cooked.
Then there’s celery root, a.k.a. celeriac. Gnarly and dirty, with bumps and tendrils, celery root appears to challenge your imagination. “What on earth will you do with me?”
The gateway dish usually takes one of three forms: mash, soup or salad. The mash brings out celery root’s nutty side, the soup spotlights its ability to take on a silky smooth texture when pureed, and the salad shows that almost anything can be tasty when raw if you cut it thinly enough — and dress it in rémoulade.
The truth is, celery root can do so much more, without nearly as much prep as you might have thought. It boasts flavors reminiscent of celery (of which it is a variety), parsnips and turnips, and it gets sweeter from a trip to the oven, so I like to cube it and roast it the same way I would potatoes, or, even better, cut it into slabs for roasting and serve them with an old-school steakhouse accompaniment: Diane sauce.
I get a kick out of combining these vintage, Vegas-style sauces — this one includes cognac and cream, and gets flambéed! — with vegetables rather than meat. Celery root stands up to the treatment well, with its earthiness playing off the same quality of the mushrooms in the sauce. But perhaps my favorite thing about this method is that it skips the part of the prep you’d think would be a must: peeling it.
I’ve gone on record with my tendency to resist peeling potatoes, carrots — even beets. But even I was surprised when I read treatments by Yotam Ottolenghi, Emeril Lagasse and others that called for you to trim but not peel the celery root before roasting it. In Ottolenghi’s case, the root gets roasted whole for a couple of hours, then you cut it into slabs, broil them and serve with a Cafe de Paris sauce. I wanted something quicker, so I took a cue from a recipe on Vice’s dear departed Munchies food site that has you pan-fry the slabs for less than 10 minutes, then transfer them to the oven for another 10 to finish roasting.
The Munchies folks peeled the celery root, and gave the “steaks” the au poivre treatment, which is delicious, but I was after something a little richer (and with less prep). Instead of hacking off that entire peel, I trimmed off the most spindly and hairy roots and scrubbed. In the oven, just like with whole beets, the peel softens enough to be easily eaten with a fork and knife. Then I built the Diane sauce, sauteing mushrooms and then enriching them with cream, Dijon mustard and cognac, the latter of which burns off in a dramatic flame when you light (carefully) with a (long) match.
The result was so good that I had more than dinner: I had another reason to be drawn to rather than resist celery root the next time I see it in the store. I can almost hear it calling now.
Celery Root Steaks Diane
Slabs of celery root get the steak treatment, pan-cooked and then roasted until tender and paired with mushrooms in a classic, rich Diane sauce built on cognac, mustard and cream. Don’t be intimidated by the flambé technique; it looks cheffy, but it’s simple. Eat these with a bean mash for protein, if you’d like.
4 to 5 servings
Active time: 35 mins; Total time: 45 mins
Storage: Refrigerate for up to 4 days.
Ingredients
1 large celery root (2 pounds)
1/2 teaspoon fine salt, plus more to taste
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper, plus more to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 shallot, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped 12 ounces cremini mushrooms, button mushrooms or oyster mushrooms, trimmed and sliced 1/4-inch thick
1/2 cup cognac or other brandy
4 teaspoons Dijon mustard 1/3 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup no-salt-added vegetable broth
4 teaspoons vegan Worcestershire sauce
Fresh parsley leaves, for garnish (optional)
Steps
Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 425 degrees.
Cut the roots and hairy bits off the celery root, compost or save them for stock, and thoroughly scrub the rest of the vegetable. (There’s no need to peel it.) Cut it into 3/4-inch slabs and sprinkle them on both sides with the salt and pepper. (You may have a couple of much smaller steaks if the celery root is particularly tapered on the ends; that’s okay.)
In a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat, warm 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and melt the butter. Add as many celery root steaks as will fit without overcrowding. Cook until deep golden brown on the bottom, 2 to 3 minutes, then flip the steaks and cook until golden brown on the other side, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer to a large sheet pan and repeat with the remaining steaks.
Transfer the celery root steaks to the oven and roast for 15 to 17 minutes, or until fork-tender.
While the steaks are roasting, return the cast-iron skillet to medium heat and add the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Once it shimmers, add the shallot and garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, 30 seconds. Increase the heat to medium-high, add the mushrooms and cook, stirring, until they soften, exude any liquid, it evaporates and they start to brown, 4 to 5 minutes.
Remove from the heat. Pour in the cognac or brandy and carefully ignite it with a long match. When the flames go out, add the mustard and cream, return the skillet to medium heat and cook, stirring, until the mixture starts to simmer. Stir in the vegetable broth and Worcestershire sauce, increase the heat to medium-high and cook until the sauce reduces and thickens enough that it leaves a trail at the bottom of the pan when you run a spoon through it, 5 minutes. Taste, and season with salt and/or pepper if needed. Turn off the heat and cover to keep warm.
When the celery root steaks are fork-tender, divide them among serving plates and generously spoon over the sauce. Sprinkle with parsley, if using, and serve hot. Substitutions: Vegan? Use vegan butter instead of the dairy butter and full-fat coconut milk instead of the cream.
Vegan Worcestershire sauce: A.1. Steak Sauce, 3 teaspoons soy sauce or tamari plus 1 teaspoon red or white miso.
Not vegan or vegetarian? Use conventional Worcestershire sauce.
Nutrition | Per serving (1 steak plus 1/3 cup sauce), based on 5: 250 calories, 22g carbohydrates, 17mg cholesterol, 11g fat, 4g fiber, 5g protein, 4g saturated fat, 649mg sodium, 5g sugar