Last week, I cleared out quite a bit of my celeriac from the hugelkultur.  There may therefore be quite a few recipes featuring this vegetable in the next week.

I can’t work out how much i like celeriac – i.e. is it worth actually growing – but that said, it is pretty tasty and it is nice to have something other than cabbage in the winter.

Recipe is from Ottolenghi Plenty, but adapted slightly as I never seem to have mint in the garden when i have celeriac and I used walnut oil, not hazelnut oil as really – how many nut oils can one person use before they go rancid? the oil not the person – although at times I feel as if I may have gone a little rancid!

We ate it with nice bread and some cheese.

Celeriac, lentil and hazelnut salad: 200g puy or beluga lentils; 60g hazelnuts; about 650g of celeriac; olive oil, walnut oil (or any other nut oil that you may have); red wine vinegar; seasoning.

Toast the hazelnuts in the oven or in a pan – I might have burnt mine a bit – adds to the flavour. Cook the lentils in some water (Ottolenghi adds bay leaves and thyme sprigs to this, I didn’t as it was raining and I didn’t want to go outside.)

Peel the celeriac and chop into 1cm chips – cook in boiling water until tender – about 10 minutes – drain. In a bowl mix the drained lentils, celeriac, nuts, vinegar, oil and seasoning – do this while the lentils are hot.

Eat warm or cold.

N.B. Just back from a lovely trip to Sweden so expect some Swedish-inspired recipes in the next week or so.