A little cream

As with any sensible author, faced with the prospect of writing my first book I tried to get two celeriac jokes in.

The first, something about celeriac being a root veg rather than someone overly excited about celery. The second described celeriac as the Eric Clapton of veg: very ordinary on its own but pretty special with Cream*.

Allow me to demonstrate how well they go together. Eric later. First:  Zlatan’s Temptation.

Jansson’s Temptation is a simple, stunning thing from Sweden that’s traditionally made with potato, but I’ve made this version with celeriac. I have rechristened it after the mercurial Zlatan Ibrahimovich, another thing of great wonder from Sweden. Go on, click it: you don’t have to like football to appreciate his magic.

Do try Zlatan’s Temptation – with lamb or beef or as the main thing with either sprouting broccoli or a leafy salad – and then, like Jannson does 40 seconds into the clip, congratulate Zlatan on being just that little bit more special.

8 anchovy fillets plus a little of their oil
30g butter, plus a litttle for greasing the dish
3 medium onions, very finely sliced
800g celeriac, peeled
300ml carton double cream
a little milk to add if required

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Slowly melt half the butter in a saucepan. Add a tablespoon or two of the anchovy oil. Add the onions and cook over a low heat, stirring occasionally, until they are very soft and without a hint of browning – don’t believe the ‘few minutes’ this takes in most recipes: this can take 20 minutes or more, don’t rush it.

Butter an ovenproof dish and add layers of celeriac up to halfway. Spoon the onions over evenly and space the anchovies on top. Carefully pour in half of the cream. Season with salt and pepper.  Add the remaining celeriac in layers, followed by the rest of the cream. Season the top, dot with the remaining butter and bake for 30 minutes, pressing down the top into the cream a couple of times. Add a little milk to top up if needed, turn down to 180°C and cook for a further 20-30 minutes, again pressing the surface down a few times to prevent the top layers drying out.

Here’s an Eric break. Perhaps the most overrated guitarist I can think of, but, like the proverbial stopped watch, still capable of being spot on every now and again. And very possibly the inspiration for Uncle Peter.

Right, back to celeriac.

I have a friend: he means well, he’s very fine at baking (go on one of his courses, he is brilliant), he provided my then 4 year old daughter with one of her favourite memories by squirting himself in the face with a hose when she’d just met him, but he doesn’t believe this recipe can be nice. I can’t blame him. Crème brûlée shouldn’t be messed with. It is like suggesting Zlatan do as all dull managers suggest of their players ‘get the ball down and earn the right to play’.

I don’t suppose any of you will make it – I wouldn’t – but here it is. It is really really good. If you haven’t any lemon thyme, lemon verbena works perfectly well…like you’re more likely to have lemon verbena than lemon thyme. Bay would probably work equally if differently well.

Celeriac and lemon thyme crème brûlée

370g celeriac
50g butter
120ml milk
8 egg yolks
140g caster sugar
11/2 vanilla pods
500ml double cream
8 or so sprigs of lemon thyme
24 tsp light brown sugar sugar

Peel and chop the celeriac into pieces about the size of a pound coin. Melt the butter in a pan over a medium heat, and add the celeriac. Cook, over a low heat for about 10 minutes until the  celeriac begins to soften. Add the milk and simmer until the celeriac is tender – about 15-20 minutes. Puree in a blender until smooth.

Preheat the oven to 150°C.

Whisk the yolks and sugar together until pale and creamy. Pour the cream into a pan. Split the vanilla pods lengthways, tease out the seeds and add pods and seeds to the cream, along with the lemon thyme, and bring just to the boil. Add the hot cream to the egg/sugar mixture, using a sieve to retain the thyme and vanilla pods. Whisk briefly, then add the celeriac puree, whisking until combined.

Place 6 ramekins in a roasting tin and fill with the custard. Pour enough boiling water into the tin to reach 2/3 up the side of the ramekins. Loosely cover the tin with foil. Cook for 20-25 minutes, until the custard is just set – it should have a little wobble to it still.

Lift the ramekins from the water and leave them to cool. Once completely cool, refrigerate for at least a couple of hours or overnight.

Sprinkle each brûlée with four teaspoons sugar and caramelise with a blowtorch. If you don’t have a blowtorch, use a painfully hot grill.

I had an accident that turned into a happy one: the blowtorch ran out of gas midflow on the last brûlée and turned out, as in the picture, partly topped with hot sugar, with islands of solid caramel. It suited the celeriac perfectly.

Perhaps, like Nike Nick Drake, Alfred Wegener, John McGeoch, Henry David Thoreau and Van Gogh my creative (celeriac) endeavours will remain largely unappreciated while I’m alive, but one day…one day, maybe all people will be eating celeriac for pud, toasting my name with a rough cider as they do**.

 

* Only the first joke made it, incomprehensibly.

** Or perhaps my taste can’t be relied upon. I am listening to Japan and eating Jerusalem artichoke cake while writing this.