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Puree of Celeriac
1 quart celeriac cut in dice 2 tablespoons butter 1 teaspoon salt 1 gill cream 1 tablespoon flour Cook the celeriac thirty minutes in boiling water, rinse in cold water, and then pass through a puree sieve. Put the butter in a saucepan on the fire. When hot, add the flour and stir until smooth and frothy, and then add the strained celeriac, and cook five minutes, stirring frequently. Add the salt and cream, and cook five minutes longer. If the puree seems dry, add more cream. Serve very hot, on toast or fried bread.
A straightforward vegetable purée thickened with a butter-and-flour roux. Two things need translating: the gill, and the instruction to rinse the cooked root in cold water.
- A gill of creamA gill is half a cup, 4 fl oz. Heavy or whipping cream gives the closest result to the period's "cream"; have a little extra on hand, since the recipe expects you to loosen the purée as needed.
- How much celeriacA quart of diced root is somewhere around 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 lb of peeled flesh, or about two medium knobs; buy a little extra to allow for trimming. Peel deep — the outer skin is fibrous and hollow-cored patches should be cut away.
- Salt the cooking waterThe recipe salts only at the end. Celeriac boiled in plain water tastes flat all the way through; salt the water as you would for potatoes and treat the final teaspoon as an adjustment.
- The cold rinseThe recipe gives no reason for it; a cold rinse would stop the cooking, and some cooks used one to take the edge off strong-tasting roots. It also cools everything down, so the purée needs the full five minutes in the pan to come back to heat.
- Purée sieve vs. food processorA food mill or drum sieve gives the fluffy texture intended. A food processor works but can turn celeriac slightly gluey if overrun; pulse rather than blitz.
- The roux"Smooth and frothy" means cook the flour in the butter until it foams and smells nutty, about a minute, but do not let it colour. Raw flour will make the purée taste pasty.
- ConsistencyThirty minutes of boiling leaves the root very soft and quite wet, so the purée may need no extra cream at all. Judge by eye — it should mound on a spoon, not pour.
- Yield and servingServes about four as a side, or two if it is the main part of the plate, spooned over toast or bread fried in butter. It sets quickly as it cools, so plate it the moment it comes off the heat.
Celeriac — the swollen root of a cultivated celery, grown for the base rather than the stalk — was long more familiar in German, Dutch and French kitchens than English-speaking ones, and American cookbooks of the period often introduce it as "celery root" or "turnip-rooted celery" as though the reader may not have met it. If it does indeed appear here as a meat substitute, that would fit what is often said of early twentieth-century vegetarian cookery, which is generally described as leaning on savoury, mineral-tasting roots and strong stocks to fill the place on the plate where a chop or a slice of roast would sit. The service "on toast or fried bread" is the same convention that carried creamed mushrooms, creamed sweetbreads and countless other soft mixtures to the table in that era: the bread supplied the body and the substance, and the purée supplied the flavour.