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Fried Celery
2 cups flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 1/2 cups milk 2 eggs, beaten 1/2 cup melted shortening celery Make a batter of flour and baking powder, salt well sifted together, milk, beaten eggs and shortening. Cut as many stalks of celery as desired in three or four inch pieces, and cook in boiling salted water until tender. Drain and let dry on a platter; dip them into the batter until well coated and fry in hot fat until brown. Serve on a flat dish with a border of celery leaves.
A straightforward fritter batter used on blanched celery stalks. The batter quantity here is generous — enough for two to three dozen pieces — so cut more celery than you think you need or plan to use the remainder for other vegetables.
- Dry the celery properlyThis is the hinge. Wet stalks shed the batter in the fat and cause violent spattering. After draining, blot the pieces and let them sit on a platter until the surface looks matte, ten to fifteen minutes.
- Fat temperatureThe recipe says only "hot fat." For deep frying a batter like this, somewhere around 365-375F works: below that the batter absorbs grease; much above it and the coating browns before the interior sets.
- Blanching timeCelery cut in three- to four-inch lengths needs roughly 5–8 minutes in boiling salted water — tender but still holding its shape. Cooked to full softness it collapses inside the coating.
- ShorteningHere this means solid vegetable shortening or lard. Melted butter or a neutral oil works in the batter; for the frying fat itself use oil with a high smoke point.
- Batter consistencyAs written the batter is on the thin side, closer to pancake than to a heavy coating. If it runs off the stalks, hold back a few tablespoons of the milk or add flour a spoonful at a time until it clings.
- Frying in batchesFry six to eight pieces at a time so the fat temperature does not drop, and drain on a rack rather than flat paper so the underside stays crisp.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no yield and leaves the amount of celery to the cook; the batter is enough to coat a large quantity, on the order of a couple of pounds. Serve immediately -- battered vegetables soften within minutes of leaving the fat.
- The celery leaf borderPurely garnish, and it depends on buying celery with the tops still attached.
Fried celery belongs to a long American line of battered and deep-fried vegetables -- parsnips, salsify, eggplant, cauliflower -- that filled out menus when a cook wanted a hot side dish with some presence. Celery itself carried a certain prestige into the early twentieth century: it had been an expensive, carefully blanched crop, sold in tall cut-glass celery vases for the table, and by the interwar years it had become cheaper and more widely available, so cookbooks were looking for things to do with it beyond the relish tray. Dishes like this one earn their place by turning a raw salad vegetable into something that can be sent to the table hot.