Celeriac Steak With Green Salsa

For our anniversary, Lundulph and I decided to go on a mini-break to the New Forest. Lundulph made the arrangements and on the first night at dinner, he decide to go vegetarian and ordered the celeriac steak, commenting that it must be magical, as it cost almost as much as a meat steak. As it turned out he liked it, but was upset about the fact that the amount of calories in it were almost nothing compared to a real steak, again not really fair, as just because someone wants to reduce their intake of red meat, doesn't mean they also want to forego the calories. But he liked the taste, so I decided to try and make it at home. It really didn't look that difficult, but as it turned out there is a trick, which the recipe I chose didn't mention. I did also have some things I wanted to use up, so I did some swaps, but I don't belive that caused the failure of my homemade celeriac steak.

Ingredents

Steak
1 celeriac
25 g unsalted butter
1 tbsp grapeseed oil
2 cloves of garlic
a few sprigs of thyme
10 ml miso wine
150 ml chicken or vegetable stock
100 g curly kale, stalks removed
100 ml water
400 g can of mixed pulses

Salsa
1 dl flat leaf parsley leaves
1 dl peppermint leaves
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Carefully peel the celeriac, then cut into 1.5 cm thick "steaks", it should be 3 - 4 steaks in total.
2. Heat the butter and grapeseed oil in a frying pan and once foaming, add the steaks and press in the garlic and add the thyme.
3. Cook on one side until the steaks start going golden and caramelise, then turn and do the other side. Keep turning for a total of 10 minutes, while basting with the fat.
4. Add the miso wine and keep cooking and turning the steaks until it reducec by half.
5. Pour in the stock and let simmer for 15 minutes until the steaks go soft and can easily be pierced with a skewer.
6. In the meantime wash and shred the kale and make the salsa.
7. Put all salsa ingredients in a food processor and blitz until everything is chopped, but not too smooth.
8. When the steaks are done, remove to a plate.
9. Now add the kale together with the water to the pan and let simmer for 5 minutes until it starts to wilt and soften.
10. Finally add the beans and stir through to get them hot.
11. Serve the celeriac steaks on top of the kale/bean mixture and drizzle over the green salsa.

What failed with the above was that my steaks hadn't fully cooked and gone soft, Maybe I cut them too thick. I hadn't realised how hard a celeriac is and it was difficult to peel, it was a bit knobbly and too large for me to hold safely, so I recommend using a paring knife, rather than a potato peeler. Cutting the steaks evently was even trickier and I haven't given it much thought of a different way to achieving a better result - unfortunately I don't have space in my kitchen for a slicing machine, that would probably be ideal. My mandolin is not quite up to the job either, even the thick slices would be a bit too thin I think, but I might try it.

Otherwise Lundulph thought it was a decent first attempt and as he re-heated the remaining steaks in the microwave, they got softer and better, so the cooking times are approximate and it's important to check the softness. The other thing Lundulph was surprised about was that at the restaurant, the celeriac didn't taste like celeriac. The one I made did and it's not his favourite flavour, though he'll eat it, unlike me, who'll take the time to carefully remove every single piece from my plate. I'm guessing that once fully cooked, celeriac will lose or at least reduce the strong flavour it has in its raw form.