No. 711

Puree of Celery, Celery Knobs and Cardoons

Puree de Celeri Celeris-raves et Cardons

For Celery.—Blanch two pounds of white celery stalks, after washing and scraping them, drain and mince them up. Put four ounces of butter into a saucepan and when warm, add the minced celery and let fry without coloring, then moisten with a quart of stock (No. 189), seasoning with salt and sugar, cook and reduce this to nothing, then pound and press it through a sieve, heat it once more, add to it a pint of bechamel (No. 409), and lastly two ounces of fresh butter.

For the Celery Knobs.—Have two pounds of celery knobs, cut each in four pieces, after peeling them; blanch them in hot water, drain, return them to the saucepan with salt, sugar and two ounces of butter, and reduce till dry, pound and rub through a sieve, add a gill of allemande (No. 407), and just before serving, stir in two ounces of fine butter.

Cardoons.—Mince some cooked cardoons; reduced a bechamel (No. 409) with meat glaze (No. 401), add the cardoons and reduce the whole together for twelve minutes; season with salt and sugar; rub through a fine sieve and return the pulp to the saucepan to heat without boiling and finish at the last moment with a piece of fresh butter.

← No. 710 Puree of Cauliflower or Sea-Kale Garnishings No. 712 Puree of Chestnuts →

For the Modern Kitchen

Three vegetable purées from the garnishing section of Ranhofer's Epicurean, built on the book's own stocks and sauces. Each depends on driving the moisture out completely before the sauce goes in, which is where most of the flavour comes from.

Reduce "to nothing"The instruction to cook and reduce the celery to nothing is literal: the pan should be nearly dry, the vegetable sizzling in butter rather than swimming. Any liquid left behind gives a slack purée that no amount of butter will rescue.
Celery knobs are celeriacThe knobs called for in the second preparation are celery root, sold now as celeriac. Two pounds is one large or two medium roots; peel deeply, since the outer layer is fibrous, and expect to lose a quarter of the weight.
CardoonsA thistle grown for its stalks, related to the globe artichoke, still sold in Italian and some Middle Eastern markets in late autumn and winter. They need trimming of strings, a squeeze of lemon in the cooking water to stop browning, and long simmering until tender before they are "cooked" in Ranhofer's sense. Braised artichoke bottoms are the nearest substitute in taste.
Allemande must not boilSauce allemande (No. 407) is a velouté finished with egg yolks, so the celeriac purée should not be allowed to boil once it is stirred in: past a bare simmer the yolks set into specks. The instruction to heat without boiling is given for the cardoon purée, which is built on béchamel and meat glaze rather than allemande.
A gillHalf a cup, four fluid ounces. The pint of béchamel for the celery is a full US pint, two cups.
The saucesBéchamel (No. 409) in this book is a substantial milk sauce, closer to a thick modern one than a pouring sauce; meat glaze (No. 401) is stock reduced to a syrup, for which a good demi-glace or heavily reduced brown stock stands in. Stock No. 189 is one of the book's own numbered stocks, cross-referenced here rather than described.
Sieve or machinePounding in a mortar and forcing through a drum sieve was the only route to smoothness in 1894. A food processor followed by a fine sieve gets there faster, but do not skip the sieve for the cardoons or the celery, both of which carry strings that a blade only chops shorter.
Salt and sugarThe pinch of sugar is not sweetening; it offsets the slight bitterness in celery, celeriac and especially cardoon. Add it early, with the salt, so it works during the reduction.
YieldThe celery and celery-knob versions make roughly a quart each, enough as a garnish or bed for eight to ten servings; the cardoon quantity is left unspecified in the recipe. Finish with the last butter off the heat, immediately before it goes to the table, or the gloss dulls.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer spent more than thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is his attempt to set down the whole working system of that kitchen: numbered recipes that cite one another, so a purée is three lines because the béchamel and the stock already have their own entries. This one sits in the garnishings chapter rather than among the vegetable dishes, which suggests how it was used — spooned as a bed under a sweetbread or a cutlet, or piped as a border, not served in a bowl. Grouping celery, celeriac and cardoon together reflects their shared place in nineteenth-century French cookery as mildly bitter winter vegetables; cardoons were a familiar market vegetable in France and were also grown in the United States, then faded from American kitchens almost entirely over the following century.