If you don’t have a salad spinner, dislike washing lettuce/your salad spinner, have an unusual love of celery, don’t like complicated recipes, have secret celery root curiosity, and/or are craving more raw foods as warmer weather fast approaches, this recipe is for you.
We have played with raw celery root before in this (fabulous, if I do say so myself) Celery Root Rémoulade with Green Apples & Walnuts, and we are doing it again this week in a very low maintenance, fresh and crisp kind of way.
Did you know that you can eat celery root raw? If you have ever cozied up to French cuisine you probably did (the land of cooked cucumber and raw egg yolks, so bizarre and brilliant). It does however, seem as though celery root is more famous these days in its roasted, caramelized state, or as a creamy soup (both great). It has a nice bite when left raw though, it’s not weird at all, and it holds up well to a heavier dressing. It tastes like celery but with less of a watery crisp and more of a dull crunch.
Celery root is actually the root of a celery plant, but not the same sweet celery that we have come to know and love (more bitter and hard to find unless you grow it yourself). Aesthetically, celery root belongs in the movie Pan’s Labyrinth (minus the scary). It has roots for days (and so much dirt trapped in those roots) that you literally just cut away and discard while you peel the rest, exposing the smooth, pale interior.
