The Mammal was away recently on two separate trips, visiting friends and family. This brought, of course, the inestimable advantage of having lovely meals served up by charming hosts. This particular dish is one of those ones that sound rather improbable until actually tried: the trick here is to make sure that the celeriac is cooked until nice and soft, so that it becomes beautifully tender and sweet. When trying to reconstruct it without the recipe, we found it difficult to get the right level of sweetness using the pan alone (our hostess clearly had magic powers), so experimented by adding an extra stage of baking beforehand. This worked a treat.
Serves 2–6, depending on the size of the celeriac and on whether it is the main ingredient or a side helping.
Cooking and prep time: about 1h all told
Ingredients
1 large-ish celeriac
2 eggs, beaten
flour
breadcrumbs, seasoned with salt and pepper
oil for frying
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.
Peel the celeriac, and cut into rounds about half a centimeter thick. (It might actually be easier to cut he rounds first and then peel). Put the rounds on a tray and bake in the oven for 20–30 minutes.
Let the baked rounds cool slightly; dip in flour, then in beaten egg, and finally in breadcrumbs. Heat oil in a frying pan, and fry in batches until breadcrumbs are golden.
Serve with boiled veg, mash, salad or whatever takes your fancy.
