In defence of celery ...

[Guest]

Celery seems to divide opinion - we have a few celery-haters on the Board

Here Yotam Ottolenghi provides what sounds to me to be a stunning recipe for Swiss chard and celery gratin

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/nov/08/celery-soup-gratin-recipes-ottolenghi

Yum!

Do you have favourite celery recipes?

;biggrin:

[Beef Oven!]

Celery seems to divide opinion - we have a few celery-haters on the Board

Here Yotam Ottolenghi provides what sounds to me to be a stunning recipe for Swiss chard and celery gratin

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/nov/08/celery-soup-gratin-recipes-ottolenghi

Yum!

Do you have favourite celery recipes?

;biggrin:

Celery is an absolute essential for Italian stock and most broths. Cooking without celery is quite simply impossible. Who are these fools!?

[LeMartinPecheur]

Celery is an absolute essential for Italian stock and most broths. Cooking without celery is quite simply impossible. Who are these fools!?

Better consider them merely unlucky in their allocation of taste-buds??

[Beef Oven!]

Better consider them merely unlucky in their allocation of taste-buds??

But who are they? People must know their precise identities.

[Barbirollians]

Celery is much more important as a flavouring ingredient than being filled with Primula cheese spread ! Raw celery is pretty foul as are many commercial preparations such as tinned celery soup .

Insaporito - however it is essential .

[Flosshilde]

Raw celery is pretty foul

It depends on whether you are eating the commercial self-blanching (not) green stuff, or home grown, properly blanched stuff. The latter is firm & tasty; the former watery and tasteless.

[french frank]

Raw celery is pretty foul as are many commercial preparations such as tinned celery soup .

That opinion probably derives from having bought some poor quality celery - bitter and stringy. But the crisp, fresh taste of tender, well blanched (as Floss has said) celery is to be sought - as good as apple with some hard, tasty English cheese.

Having admitted that I opted for fennel rather than celery in another thread earlier today, that was only because the celery on offer didn't look too good to me - thin and green. And I wanted to try the fennel in my Italian stock. So!

I do think that cooked celery is better used as a stock flavouring - it has a completely different taste from the raw, like most vegetables e.g. sprouts and carrots, and it can sometimes be slightly unpleasant.

[Anna]

I'm afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery.
Aldous Huxley said that.!

[LeMartinPecheur]

But who are they? People must know their precise identities.

My family are all celery-eaters so 'fraid I can't help.

[I'm not sure I'd tell you if we weren't though: you sound as if you think non-celery-eating sufficient grounds for ethnic cleansing]

[teamsaint]

Practically live on the fibrous loveliness of celery.
Celery and Onion soup is a winter essential.
Happiness is "Two for £1" week at Tesco.

Great thread.
Personally, I think that the government realise how delicious and health giving it is, and send out agents to undermine it.......

Oscar Wilde had some pithy sayings about celery, I think.

[amateur51]

I admire celery's variety within the bunch. The stout outer stems, the tender sweeter more intense inner stems of the heart and my favourite part of all, the thick base for chomping on (which my Welsh mother always referred to as the bonin - don't ask why, I never did).

I agree with french frank, good cheese make a wonderful accompaniment.

[Mary Chambers]

I love celery. Moreover, I think it's a beautiful word. It would make a good name - how about Celery Chambers?

[umslopogaas]

At the risk of being ethnically cleansed, I admit freely that cant stand the stuff and never eat it. If I cooked a recipe that required it, I'd just leave it out, but I mainly cook Asian recipes and it doesnt seem to feature.

[Barbirollians]

At the risk of being ethnically cleansed, I admit freely that cant stand the stuff and never eat it. If I cooked a recipe that required it, I'd just leave it out, but I mainly cook Asian recipes and it doesnt seem to feature.

Strangely enough it was a dish in a Sichuan restaurant in Hong Kong featuring scallops and braised celery that showed me that if cooked properly it was not necessarily disgusting .Unlike raw celery which is horrible no matter how blanched it is !

[gurnemanz]

Essential in many stir fries, which we do often, so we always have it in the house. I bought a magnificent locally produced (Wilts) specimen at the market this week. It's in bucket of water to keep fresh. My mother use to put it on the table at Sunday tea in the fifties.