Celery

[Huevos del Toro]

Celery!...More than you imagined!

[Carlovski]

It is still wrong.

[sandra]

It is still wrong.

yes, horribly wrong....

[Pan]

Just don't eat celery, you two! No need to proselytize to those of us who like it.

[eatingwitheddie]

CELERY

In my view celery is a particularly special vegetable that is often misunderstood. While French chefs may braise it or use it in a mirepoix as the base of a stew or sauce, it is the renowned Thai chef, Arun Sampanthaviant, the owner of the great Arun's in Chicago, who helped raise my consciousness.

Celery or its leaves when chopped very lightly and left either very lightly cooked or kept raw, makes an extraordinary last moment addition to many dishes. It works like parsley that has been added to a pasta sauce just before serving. It can add a touch of freshness and a complexity of flavor that is just right. Try adding a 1/2 cup to fried rice at the last moment or a little finely chopped leaf to a salad dressing.

[elfin]

Can't have turkey sage dressing without celery. Cream of celery soup is delicious too.

[Jinmyo]

Carlovski and sandra:

Two wrongs make a right.

[Carlovski]

I feel my sig may have given away my prejudice....

As I have probably said on several other threads, it is the whole stuff, or when raw I object to. In a mirepoix, fine. I don't even mind celery leaves too much. And I will stir my bloody Mary with a stick (Briefly, then fling it away as far as humanly possible).

[malcolmjolley]

It works like parsley that has been added to a pasta sauce just before serving. It can add a touch of freshness and a complexity of flavor that is just right.

From what I understand, parsley , carrots and celery are all from the same family. (I have a friend who is violently allergic to all three - poor thing - but nothing else.)

I love the crunch and flavour of the stuff added to a risotto.

[denise_jer]

And then there's Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray.

Surprisingly tasty!

[Cynthia G]

Celery is an essential ingredient in jalapeno cheese soup. Yum!

[ludja]

Zuni salad with sliced celery, cured anchovies, cracked pepper, olive oil and lemon. Yum.

Also had a wonderful celery and grilled octopus salad in Venice.

...and love to add it to tunafish salad.

[Mabelline]

I have a 1950's recipe from a famous foodie of that era, General Frank Dorn.It came from China and is exquisitely simple. Celery, beefmarrow, sherry, soy,salt, pepper.Umm.

[edsel]

Green celery is the variety that we find in most American markets (as opposed to white celery, which is favored by Europeans).

I thought white celery was just regular celery that's been blanched (shielded from light). Maybe the author could have used a word other than "variety". Unblanched celery tastes a bit more bitter and, well, green.

Anyways, I agree that celery leaves can be treated more like an herb than a vegetable. Great in soups and dressings.

[Toliver]

My mom's secret ingredient (and fifi's, too!) for her Potato Salad and her Cole Slaw is some celery seed. It does wonders to add that little "something" extra to those recipes.

As a kid, we all loved raw celery sticks stuffed with peanut butter (the celery was little more than a delivery system for the peanut butter ). I also used to love dipping plain raw celery sticks into salsa.

It's almost an empty caloric food from what I understand (not much "there" there).

Is there any truth to the rumor that we burn more calories digesting it than we take in by eating it?

[Mabelline]

Oh my, yes, Toliver. If there's no celery seed in the house, you just can't make them-that's an unwritten law, I believe. And I do wish more foods would be so kind as to X themselves out like that! Wouldn't that be nice?

[Squeat Mungry]

From my post to the Cities' Signature Dish thread:

Celery Victor (celery stalks immersed in chicken, veal and vegetable stock and served with a topping of salt, black pepper, chervil, tarragon vinegar and olive oil -- invented at The St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco by legendary chef Victor Hertler)

Cheers,

Squeat

[Adam Balic]

Celery leaves are used a lot in Italian (Northern) and if you can get them they are very good (flavour without strings), but if not you can always buy Chinese celery (has a more intense flavour).

For those celery haters consider that in the 16th C. when 'modern' celery was developed is replaced a large number of other similar veg. So there are things out there that taste worse then celery.

[alacarte]

mmmm.....celery....alongside buffalo chicken wings and bleu cheese dressing....mmmmm.....

[hannnah]

I have a 1950's recipe from a famous foodie of that era, General Frank Dorn.It came from China and is exquisitely simple. Celery, beefmarrow, sherry, soy,salt, pepper.Umm.

One of our local Chinese places serves something awfully similar to this as an appetizer - they call it Peking Celery. I don't know for sure that they use marrow - it might just be a really gelatinous stock. It's very good though. The celery sponges up all the juice, so you've got the crispy celery texture with a lot of gorgeous meaty flavor. I'm not a huge celery fan, but I do like this dish.

[russ parsons]

sliced raw celery, vinaigrette with shallots and walnut oil, crumbled blue cheese, chopped toasted walnuts. raw celery cut in matchsticks, vinaigrette with olive oil and lemon juice, salt-cured anchovies, briefly refreshed. let's not be closed-minded.

[Comfort Me]

Alas, I pity he who has not discovered the eternal truth. What a friend we have in celery...

Dorothy Kalins, former editor of Saveur, wrote a lovely piece, Crunch, which pays homage to the ubiquitous vegetation which is so much a part of our collective culinary experience.

Alas. I lived happilly under the assumption that celery knew no enemies.

It is, after all, friend to the sad and lonely dieter. I myself have relied heavilly on the rumor -- never substantiated by a nutritionist, of course -- that celery was considered negative calories because it requires more energy to digest than it contains.

It is friend to those not concerned with their daily coloric intake. Think of those spicy, golden chicken wings -- they wouldn't be the same if not accompanied by the pungent, silky, lemony blue cheese and the slender, crunchy celery sticks.

Celery is friend to school children! Who among us did not happilly gobble up a plate of ants on a log offered as an after school snack? And, to those grown and blessed with children of their own, I ask, have you not made this same snack for your child, thinking fondly back across the ages to your own youth? My dear son, Noah, prefers red ants on a log -- substituting dried cranberries for the traditional raisins without loosing the picturesque quality of the name.

I can't help but ask the anti-celery zealots this: What possibly could this humble vegetable have done to warrant you animous and scorn? What did celery ever do to you, save offer you nourishment, comfort, and dietary fiber? Repent, and cease your rueful slander.

Edited to get my freakin' plural nouns straight!

Edited February 12, 2004 by Comfort Me (log)

[Mabelline]

Wow, hannnah, that sounds like the same recipe, for the description of the Gen. in my book is a lovely tale about fall weekends spent at a temple compound outside Peking! Just the names of the temples...Temple of the Sleeping Buddha...Temple of the Precious Pearl Cavern...the Eight Great Temples...The lady who was his host employed a Peking chef named Chiang (50's spelling) who would roast giant braziers of lamb, and this celery and marrow dish. I love it! The celery really takes to the other ingredients. I am so glad that it is available for someone else to try somewhere.

Edit to add: Comfort Me, that is so true. Actually ants on a log were one of my girls' first recipes they made for me. Your red ants made me think of a Southern version--chile pieces and you've got : Fire Ants on a log!

Edited February 12, 2004 by Mabelline (log)

[Pan]

Celery is friend to school children! Who among us did not happilly gobble up a plate of ant on a log offered as an after school snack?

Me! What is it?

The thing about celery is that it gets sour really easily, and then it's lousy.

My brother hates celery, though, and finds its flavor overpowering even when it's perfectly fresh.

[Katherine]

Can't have turkey sage dressing without celery. Cream of celery soup is delicious too.

Chicken, too.

Between this and raw & stuffed with fluffy blue cheese spread, you've pretty much get the major food groups covered. The ones that count, anyway.