Are you always on the lookout for certain things? I’m always looking for epazote, black hand soap, Stewed Monkey Heads, an inexpensive throwing ax, and fuzzy socks. I don’t want to buy any of these online, especially the socks; I want to be led to them by fate. Ideally, Marie Kondo will be standing at the cash register when I check out, and she’ll bow and say, “Wow, nice purchase. Please remember to thank the epazote!”
Eaters, I very rarely find fresh epazote here in Northeastern Massachusetts, but I thought I might find cepa de apio, a latin version of celery root, in any one of the dozens of Dominican grocery stores in Lawrence. Cepa de apio is supposed to be a little sweeter and more herb-y than ordinary celery root, but I just particularly wanted to see a pile of them – they look like sumo wrestlers that have been through a trash compactor.
You can find a lot of odd vegetables in Lawrence, MA, a town of 80,000 where almost 40% of the population was actually born in the Dominican Republic. I found some saba bananas – we’ll cook them later; they turn blue when they’re mashed up with butter, and you can make them into ketchup – but no cepa. The fine ladies manning the steam table at my favorite little market, Mi Pais, certainly knew about them, and they also told me that saba bananas were good for diabetes. But I would have to make do with celeriac, aka celery root.
The idea behind all this was to do something different with celery root, which was having its heyday in the markets, and which I think is underappreciated. It’s also the time of year both to lose weight and to crave hot, creamy soup, which are normally opposing impulses. I had been thinking along French or chowder lines when I ran into the cepa de apio recipe on Simple, by Clara, a resourceful Dominican site with instructions for working with both malanga and fabric mod podge, hosted by the un-matronly Tia Clara Gonzalez and her British friend, Auntie Ilana.
And so – we have a comforting, weeknight-simple recipe with few calories and a lot of boxes checked: gluten free, dairy free, potentially vegan. Basically just onions, carrots, celery root and golden potatoes spiced up with some cilantro and cumin and pureed in a blender. It screamed for a half cup of heavy cream, but I opted for a nice distraction – diced sauteed celery root with scallions and a few dabs of hot sauce. Less lubricity, more felicity. Maybe a little sour cream on the side.
Recipe: Creole Celery Root Soup
A comforting soup from below ground - onions, potatoes, carrots and celery root, pureed with cumin and culantro.
-Full Post-
Peel and chop all the vegetables, reserving a small slice of celery root. In a large saucepan, melt the butter and saute the diced onions and celery until translucent, about 4 minutes. Add the ground cumin and black pepper and saute another minute, until fragrant. Add the chopped culantro or cilantro and stir up well.
When the herbs have wilted slightly, add the rest of the ingredients and water (or broth) to cover. Bring to a boil and simmer about 30 minutes, or until all of the root vegetables are extremely tender. Meanwhile, cube the remaining slice of celery root and saute in a small frying pan with a little butter or oil until nicely browned on all sides. Add a splash of broth and cover the pan to steam the celery root cubes, but leave them with a little bite.
Remove from heat and let cool for a minute. Scoop the solids and broth into a food processor or blender and puree, in batches as needed, until smooth. Reheat in the original pot when ready to serve. Garnish with the sauteed celery root and some diced scallions or fresh cilantro leaves. Serve with sour cream and hot sauce on the side.
Comforting and simple. I found long leaves of culantro, which is just a little heartier than cilantro, but cilantro plus its stems is a very good substitute. I do like to grind small quantites of whole spices together in a small mortar, as indicated, but that's just me being a spice control freak.
In addition to everything else, diced avocado would be a nice garnish. Also maybe a dusting of nutmeg.
This soup just screams for around a half cup of heavy cream, but I resisted. I wanted more of a weeknight tonic dish. But if you give in, add it at the end, after pureeing, and heat gently just to a bare simmer.
Ingredients
Directions
Peel and chop all the vegetables, reserving a small slice of celery root. In a large saucepan, melt the butter and saute the diced onions and celery until translucent, about 4 minutes. Add the ground cumin and black pepper and saute another minute, until fragrant. Add the chopped culantro or cilantro and stir up well.
When the herbs have wilted slightly, add the rest of the ingredients and water (or broth) to cover. Bring to a boil and simmer about 30 minutes, or until all of the root vegetables are extremely tender. Meanwhile, cube the remaining slice of celery root and saute in a small frying pan with a little butter or oil until nicely browned on all sides. Add a splash of broth and cover the pan to steam the celery root cubes, but leave them with a little bite.
Remove from heat and let cool for a minute. Scoop the solids and broth into a food processor or blender and puree, in batches as needed, until smooth. Reheat in the original pot when ready to serve. Garnish with the sauteed celery root and some diced scallions or fresh cilantro leaves. Serve with sour cream and hot sauce on the side.
Comforting and simple. I found long leaves of culantro, which is just a little heartier than cilantro, but cilantro plus its stems is a very good substitute. I do like to grind small quantites of whole spices together in a small mortar, as indicated, but that's just me being a spice control freak.
In addition to everything else, diced avocado would be a nice garnish. Also maybe a dusting of nutmeg.
This soup just screams for around a half cup of heavy cream, but I resisted. I wanted more of a weeknight tonic dish. But if you give in, add it at the end, after pureeing, and heat gently just to a bare simmer.