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Fried Celery
Remove the green leaves from the celery and cut the stalks into pieces five inches long. Cleanse thoroughly, cover with boiling water, stand aside fifteen minutes; drain and dry on a towel. Beat one egg without separating until the white and yolk are thoroughly mixed, add one tablespoonful of warm water. Take one cup of dry bread crumbs, add a half teaspoonful of salt and a dash of pepper. Dip the celery first in the egg and then in the crumbs; fry until crisp, in smoking hot fat. Drain and serve hot. This is a very nice accompaniment to poultry and game.
A simple crumb-fried vegetable that stands or falls on how dry the celery is when it meets the egg. Everything else is straightforward.
- Dry the celery properlyThe stalks sit in boiling water off the heat for fifteen minutes, which softens them without cooking them through. They must then be blotted completely dry or the egg will slide off and the crumbs will fall away in the fat.
- "Smoking hot fat" means 365–375°F"Smoking hot fat" -- the recipe gives no temperature, and fat that is genuinely smoking is past its useful point and will taste scorched. Modern deep-frying practice for a crumbed coating sits well below the smoke point; fry until the crumbs are crisp and browned, as the recipe directs.
- Deep fat, not a shallow panFive-inch pieces need enough depth to float, so a heavy pot with a good two inches of fat. The recipe specifies only "fat"; lard or a neutral oil both work.
- String the outer stalksThe outer ribs of a supermarket bunch still have tough fibres. Run a peeler down the ridged side before blanching, or use the tender inner stalks.
- Bread crumbs"Dry bread crumbs" here means stale bread grated fine, not the seasoned canned sort. Plain fine crumbs or panko both work; panko gives a coarser, crisper shell.
- Egg washOne egg beaten whole with a tablespoon of warm water, as the recipe specifies. If you run short, add another egg rather than thinning the first further, or the crumbs will not adhere.
- Yield and timingTiming -- the recipe gives no yield or quantity of celery. Fry in batches, drain on a rack rather than piled on paper, and serve at once; the coating softens quickly.
- The leavesThe discarded green tops are worth keeping for stock or chopping into the gravy for the poultry this is meant to accompany.
Celery was a comparatively costly vegetable in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in part because the stalks were blanched by banking earth or boards around them as they matured. It was set out raw in tall celery vases at formal tables and appears on menus of the period among the relishes, which is one reason cookbooks of the era give it more space than a modern vegetable book would. Cooked treatments -- braised, creamed, stewed, or crumbed and fried as here -- extended it beyond the raw relish dish, and the recipe's own closing line recommends it with poultry and game.