Celeriac (Celery Root)
 

Has anybody here every used it? Thanksgiving is about 3 weeks away and since I've converted a few family members to low carb, I thought it would be nice to serve a low carb side or two. I detest cauliflower and am hoping celery root will work.

I'd like to make fauxtato skins or faux mashed potatoes or maybe even a faux potato salad.

In days gone by I used to mix celery root in with potatoes for mashed, up to half and half. Nowadays I do the same but with cauliflower instead of potatoes. But as you don't like cauli that wouldn't work here. I've never tried celery root mash on it's own, but would think that it might work well. I would add in some roasted garlic as well. Celery root tastes, to me, like a mild flavored mix of celery and turnip, so perhaps adding in some mashed rutabaga or turnip might be to your taste. I've never tried a "potato" salad with celery root, but have successfully used it in other type salads so probably it would also work in what you have in mind. My German husband introduced me to celery root when we first met (and I introduced him to stalk celery, which was not known in Germany back then). A note for prepping celery root: like potatoes, celery root will darken in color readily if not cooked immediately, or put into acidulated water.

Celery root is good roasted. I used to make roasted root veggies which included the celeriac, garlic cloves, sweet potato and beets. So yummy.

Now, I suppose you could do the same with celeriac, brussel sprouts, garlic, turnips, radishes, maybe add in some zucchini and red pepper strips towards the end of the roasting?

We really like this recipe for holidays:

Jicama Eggplant Stuffing

I don't tell anyone what's in it, just let them try it. It gets eaten up. :yum:

Celeriac is a common winter side vegetable here in Belgium. It is often pureed with butter and cream or used in soups. I really like it as it has more flavor than turnip.

tess9132, you might like to try my recipe for Celeriac Dauphinoise, which I posted a while ago on the forum:

https://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=435856

Sauted Endive is also a possibility.

Many greens we think of as only fresh salad material can also be sauteed for a side dish. ie radichio

Excellent! Thank you everyone. I may try sauteed endive as well. I could see that going over well. I could see my husband really enjoying it.

I'm going to Whole Foods tomorrow to pick up the celery root - our regular grocery stores don't carry it. My daughter is coming home this weekend and will be up for recipe sampling with me.

Do share your winners!!

I feel like a dumb southerner, but I have never seen the root of a bunch of celery. Is it like a turnip? Is it starchy? Our celery comes with no root, but pre-bagged, and sometimes no bag, but never with a root. And I've lived in the south all of my life.... guess I'll have to google it.

The thing is, I don't really like celery too much. I mean, I like it fine diced up small and put into chicken salad and potato salad, (in the past, hahah). But to eat a piece of raw celery, blechkkk! And to put pb on it? NO WAY!! LMAO! To me, that's as weird as, say, putting blueberry jam on fresh red radishes! ;-P

Celery root is a knobby, ugly looking thing; I kind of wonder what the food situation was for the first one who tried to eat it; pretty dire I should think. Kind of like the first person to have a go at an artichoke :lol: It is the same plant as the stalk celery you are familiar with, but bred for an enlarged root instead of long juicy stalks. Like broccoli & cauliflower are the same plant, but bred over time for different characteristics. You might like the root as the flavor isn't so strong, and the texture is completely different. On the other hand, if you're not that fond of celery to begin with there's really no reason to go hunting for this. There are lots of other potato substitutes in the produce section. Also, this is very definitely a part of the northern European eating profile; I had never heard of it either, growing up in California. Could be it just hasn't traveled far enough south for you to have run across it.

I'll stick to making faux mashed potatoes with cauliflower. :-)