CELERIAC - UGLY BUT DELICIOUS - A vegetable which looks like scabies!
Channel: Health me Food
Date: 2018-11-21

Let's continue our series about vegetables. Today we have chosen celeriac. Ugly, but really tasty!

**********************************************

#health #celery #celeriac #healthmefood

**********************************************

Follow me on the social networks or on my website.

website: http://www.healthmefood.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/healthmefood/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healthmefood78

**********************************************

Botanically speaking the celeriac is apium  graveolens var. Rapaceum, and belongs to the Umbellifarae family

Celeriac is a botanical variety of the celery. This variety of celery is called "root vegetable" because we consume the root of the plant which is edible and has a large, rounded and knotty shape. Its own taste more delicate than the traditional celery

Celeriac grows easily in temperate climate zones and frost can irreversibly damage the plant.
The ideal weight of the plant when you buy it should be between 600 and 700 gr

Its root is very peculiar. The colour of the root is brown on the outside and white on the inside. 

As the best-known celery, also the celeriac has great properties. Composed of water for more than 80% of its weight, it is low in calories and rich in minerals such as calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium and Iodine. It has remineralizing and diuretic properties. Its aroma is due to the limonene, which, together with another substance called selinene, has disinfectant properties. It also contains coumarins that help the cardiocirculatory system and it has also a good dose of vitamins.

The surface is wrinkled and very rough. The leaves that come out of the ground are dark green and are concave on the inside
Usually, only the root is consumed, but also the leaves are edible. Even the external part is theoretically edible, but it would be better to cook it. If after the purchase you want to remove the outside, you can consume it raw. And as I always say, eating raw vegetables, will only give you benefits in terms of nutritional density, as you will better preserve the vitamins, which are denaturated by the heat.

Instead, the upper and lower part of the peel must be eliminated.
Being a root, take care to wash it well if you consume it with all the peel, maybe using one of those kitchen brushes

I remind you that, as for celery, due to the presence of some protein compounds such as API G 1, API G 4 and API G 5, celeriac is one of the foods that can potentially trigger allergic reactions
So, if you are sensitive to these substances, avoid consuming it, as well as celery 

Now let's analyse the nutritional qualities in detail and then see how we can eat it, in a very tasty way
Now that I’ve bored you with the nutritional properties, why don't we look at how we can use it in the kitchen?

You can use it either as an ingredient in an Italian pinzimonio, as suggested in the peppers video or use it in salads. In this case, you can dress it in a very simple way, for example, you can cut it into thin slices and season with extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice and some little balsamic vinegar. Being the ugly brother of the celery will have the same scent and flavour, but with a lesser intensity. His goodness is inversely proportional to his beauty!

Or as you can see in the video here, you can always use it raw, like a hummus, chopping it in a food processor, along with garlic, parsley, mustard, a touch of Tabasco and extra virgin olive oil. It will not be dense and homogeneous like a hummus, but it will taste very fresh and particularly interesting and full of scents and flavours.

A further idea is to make us a delicious mash. As you can see in the video is very simple and fast. Cut the celeriac into chunks and then add a half a glass of milk and a nice touch of butter. Then cook it on a very low heat until it's tender. At that point add black pepper, nutmeg and nothing else. The taste is delicious and, in my house, always flies off. Moreover, it is a very valid alternative to mashed potatoes if you want to have a high satiating value, but a low dose of carbohydrates.

If you want an advice, but don’t tell anybody I gave it to you, because I'm still a nutritionist, you can also use it as an alternative to French fries. Just cut it in the shape of chips, in the desired thickness and then fry it in oil until it is cooked.

I don’t fry that much, but if I have to, I use a deep fryer. If you do not have it, I recommend to always fry in abundant boiling oil, to speed up cooking, to avoid that the food absorbs too many fats and more importantly, to avoid that the oil reaches and exceeds its smoke point, developing carcinogenic compounds.

Di Kalumet - de.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41339