Celeriac is not given enough love in my opinion, forever chucked into soups or remoulades but never given the starring role it truly deserves. This recipe is giving high drama with minimal fuss and is the perfect start to your life long journey with one of my favourite root vegetables.
Preheat the oven to 180c fan.Â
Next, prepare your celeriacs by cutting off the gnarly roots and peeling off all the skin. Give these a thorough wash, and then use a knife to score across the top of the celeriac in 1 cm intervals, about 5mm deep, before cross hatching the other way - this will allow for the spices to permeate the vegetable a little deeper. Mix together the olive oil, salt, pepper and ras el hanout in a little bowl and rub this all over the celeriac before setting aside.Â
Take a roasting dish for which a wire rack can comfortably sit inside of. Take your hot stock , pour into the roasting tray and whisk in the miso, date syrup, vinegar, orange juice, salt and ras el hanout until thoroughly combined.Â
Add the onions and garlic to the roasting dish, spreading them out evenly. Set your roasting tray on top of this, top with your celeriac and cover this all tightly in foil. Place this in the oven for 1 hour before removing and checking if your celeriac is cooked through - you should be able to slide a skewer through the middle with just a tiny bit of resistance, as this is going to be returned to the oven.
Whilst the celeriac cooks, lighty grind the pumpkin seeds and sesame for the salsa macha to a coarse rubble, combine with the other ingredients in a bowl and set aside. You can do this with a pestle and mortar or just a light blitz in a bullet blender.Â
Turn the oven up to 250 c fan, remove the foil entirely and place this back in the oven for a further 30 minutes, by which point your celeriac should be golden and entirely cooked through, and the gravy should be reduced and thick. If the sauce is still looking a little thin, remove the celeriacs from the tray, cover tightly with foil to keep warm and return the wrack back to the oven until the gravy is thickened.Â
Take the garlic, pop out the cloves, crush them lightly with a fork on a chopping board before stirring these through the gravy.Â
Carve the celeriac into slices and plate with a spoon of gravy and salsa macha on top.Â