Oh, what to do with a boring vegetable like celery? Celery sticks and peanut butter? Celery sticks with cream cheese? Boring. There must be more excitement to celery given how cheap it is and the many stalks you get in one bunch.
Until I recently discovered the joys of making mirepoix as a base for my vegetable soups or just as a nice side or topping to a dish, celery always sat in my fridge, at the back, uneaten, ignored and wilting. One might why I keep buying it and the answer to that is that I eat it raw to keep my girlish figure. Yes, ladies, you want a fat burning food? Celery is your vegetable. Its health benefits are largely due to the amount of fibre it has. Besides, you can always tell you’re eating a healthy vegetable when it inadvertently becomes the floss in your teeth no less.
But eating celery sticks so… blah. What do you do with it then??
So I googled for “celery salad”.
To my surprise, there were a couple of amazing recipes that stood out! One recipe in particular was from Food & Wine that I found particularly appealing to my favourite section of the palette, savoury food. I’ve never read any of the Food & Wine magazines but if it’s anything like Bon Appetit then I’m all ears. Nothing is more tantalizing than finding a recipe that could appear to be something you get in a restaurant but it’s easy as pie.
On my first crack at it I only used what I had in the pantry so I substituted other ingredients into the salad. It turned out so great every time that I decided to stick with my version instead of making the original.
I have to tell you, I have made this salad about 4 times now. The taste of it is just heaven with the salty, creamy texture of cheese coupled with the sweet and nutty flavours of the dates and walnuts. All of the enhanced the taste of the celery even more so and made that taste even nuttier! I’m telling you, make a HUGE bin of it to store in the fridge for the week. It only lasts that long too, by the way, or less if you have a husband like mine who actually likes his greens. The longer you leave the salad to marinate, the better it gets because of the sweet dried dates slowly releasing their sugars into the salad as they soften over time. Oh, my need for celery has become a love for celery and frankly, I am in love and my joy is renewed for eating this vegetable.
Celery Salad
Yields 6 – 8 servings.
1 ¼ cup of walnuts, or almonds, or half of each
½ red onion, sliced thinly
2 tbsp of red wine vinegar
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
8 cups of celery, thinly sliced on the bias, including the leaves
¾ cup of dried pitted dates, sliced on the bias
¾ cup of parmigiano reggiano or pecorino cheese, thinly shaved with a knife
Salt
Pepper
Toast the walnuts in a skillet over high heat until brown and fragrant. Set aside and let cool.
In large bowl, whisk the vinegar, oil, salt and pepper. Taste the dressing to make sure it is seasoned well. Add more salt and pepper if needed.
Add the onions, celery and dates to the bowl. Gently toss until coated. Taste and add more salt if needed. Toss the cheese into the salad and serve.
Since parmigiano reggiano and pecorino are such hard, robust cheeses they will stand up in the mix without the fear of disintegrating into some grainy, mushy mess in the salad. You can be confident that the salad will look and taste just as good now and later.
