Celeriac Remoulade – and Learning

As you may have noticed, I’ve been looking for salads that I can make in the winter, with winter vegetables (mostly root vegetables.) I knew that a classic French dish I had heard of was Celeri Rémoulade, made with celery root, also known as celeriac.

I haven’t seen celery root around in a typical grocery store, but I see it in farmer’s markets – and I never really knew what to do with it. I know it tastes like celery (well, because it is, really – just a form grown for the root, not the stems.)

So – I went to Greenmarket, bought my celeriac (which is kind of small…) and came home happily. I took out my Larousse Gastronomique – the arbiter of classic French cooking (I was fortunate to inherit a copy, from the 60’s) and looked up Celeri Rémoulade.

Which wasn’t there.

All right, now… Celery root was, with direction for sautéing, pureeing,and stuffing. No mention of chilled in a sauce. So, I look up Rémoulade. It’s there (that’s a relief…) but without any mention of celeriac – just a two line description of a mayonnaise based sauce (sounding remarkably like tartar sauce… pickles and things…)

Why did I think this was a classic dish, and where on earth had I heard of it?

My old Joy of Cooking just says to serve celeriac in mayonnaise. The new one does suggest rémoulade – though in the recipe for that, in turn it doesn’t mention celeriac…  but meat and fish. On the other hand, its tartar saucy recipe does include mustard – Larousse had not – and that was in my vague recollection…  The Food Lover’s Companion has a similar description – also with fish and meat…

I poked around more in my books – and poked, poked, poked the Internet… and found more…  It seems that Celeri Remoulade is less a Classic of Fine French Cooking than something you’ll find sold by the pound in any charcuterie, or piled next to your sandwich in the local bistro. Basically, I’m trying to find the recipe for cole slaw.

Rémoulade sauce itself exists in many forms, is served on open sandwiches in Denmark, with French fries in Belgium, and (with lots of paprika added) with cold boiled shrimp in Louisiana. I found most recipes had mayonnaise and mustard – but Julia Child leaves out the mayo altogether, and other sources either substitute or add créme fraiche. Some sources leave out the mustard (though some have a note that there is already mustard in French mayonnaise…) Larousse and others call for capers – but people living in France say they’ve never seen capers in it. I think I have some freedom, here…

I decided I was going with mayonnaise and mustard – and, sure, I’d add capers… I have capers… (Think carefully before you buy a quart sized jar of capers. Sure, they keep – but who really uses that many?) I made the sauce first, as celery root discolors when cut. I just used a good commercial mayonnaise, and a nice grainy mustard. My mustard was made with just vinegar and salt, with the mustard seed – ingredients like honey or horseradish would change the flavor. I also added capers, and just a bit of lemon juice (Bottled, alas – that’s what I had on hand… fresh would have been preferable.)

I then grated the celery root. First, I trimmed the daylights out of it. The annoying thing about this vegetable, to me, has always been that it is gnarly, and you can’t just peel it, you really have to trim it. Washing won’t get the dirt out, the peel is tough – cut it all off…  If you don’t cut deeply enough, you get pockets of peel (and dirt,often… in the first picture, it’s not trimmed enough.) Just take a big sharp knife, and cut away.

I’d seen some warnings not to grate it too finely, so I used my box grater which has a coarse section, instead of pulling out my mini food processor. I piled the grated celeriac into a bowl, and stirred in enough of the sauce to bring it all together.

Then… I wondered… I have these kohlrabi, which made a nice grated salad… so I peeled and grated that – and mixed it with sauce in a separate bowl. Then I put them both in the fridge, to marinate. I also have a dab of sauce left – I’ll experiment further with that!

It should marinate a couple of hours, but we had some just an hour later for lunch. It was good, but Rich thought a bit too chewy… We ate more at dinner, though, and then it was delicious – the time in the sauce softens the celery root, as well as letting it absorb the flavor. We liked the kohlrabi, too – in fact, I’m just mixing them together to put away, and I’m really more likely to make that again…  just because the kohlrabi is more readily available for me. Kohlrabi Remoulade – a brand new classic New York dish??

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