Making Turkish Etli Kereviz Dolması (Meat-Stuffed Celeriac) at Home

Two nights ago, I was the perfect Turkish housewife and cooked up a storm.

I made a herbed salad topped with nar (a version of Claudia’s toros salatası), a creamy celeriac soup, zeytinyağlı pırasa (leeks in olive oil) and finally Turkish etli kereviz dolması (meat-stuffed celeriac). I told my husband he better enjoy all this now before I start my Polish lessons because I doubt I’ll be cooking much then!

Last week, I fondly recalled the etli kereviz dolması that my friend enjoyed at Çiya when I wrote that blog post. I couldn’t stop thinking about that dish! I had some leftover ground lamb in the freezer, and I can easily find celeriac at the markets here in Warsaw. With that in mind, I bought a kilo of celeriac at the BioBazar this past weekend.

The only problem is that celeriac is a pain in the butt to clean, hollow out and stuff! I found this article on how to easily clean celeriac, which helped immensely. Then, I used a melon baller to hollow out the insides of my celeriac once they were cut in half. Be sure to use lots of lemon juice with the cleaned celeriac halves to prevent browning.

I chatted with my girlfriend in NYC via Skype for nearly an hour while I cleaned the celeriac! If anyone has an easier way to do so, please let me know.

Once the celeriac was cleaned, I had about 2 cups worth of celeriac pieces, so I decided to make a quick soup. I sautéd onion and garlic, added the celeriac pieces and cooked with about 1 quart of chicken broth. Later, I pureed the soup and seasoned with salt and pepper. Perfect first course to go with the salad!

Once the celeriac were stuffed and baking, I moved onto the next dish – zeytinyağlı pırasa. For this recipe, I used my handy Sultan’s Kitchen: A Turkish Cookbook. I often turn to this cookbook for inspiration when I’m at home.

While the etli kereviz dolması turned out delicious, I doubt I’ll be making this recipe anytime soon. I found it very tiresome scooping out the insides of the celeriac. But if you have the time someday, please do try my recipe and let me know how it turns out!

Afiyet olsun!

Turkish Etli Kereviz Dolması (Meat-Stuffed Celeriac)

Ingredients:
1          kilo                  celeriac (Note: mine were quite small, about 8 total)

200      grams               ground lamb or beef

1          ea.                    medium onion, chopped small or grated

½         cup                  flat-leaf parsley, chopped small

1          teaspoon          dried dill

50        grams               long-grain rice (about ¼ cup)

1          Tablespoon      nar ekşisi (pomegranate molasses)

To taste                       salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 ½      ea.                    lemon

As needed: butter and olive oil

Clean, peel and cut in half each celeriac. Using a melon baller or paring knife, hollow out the inside of each celeriac half. Immediately, place the celeriac in cold water with the lemon juice to prevent discoloration.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine the ground meat, onion, herbs, rice, nar ekşisi, salt and pepper together for the stuffing.

Fill each celeriac with the stuffing mixture. Place in a large oven-safe cooking dish. Then, top a few with dollops of butter and drizzle with a little olive oil. Fill the dish with water about one-third of the way up the celeriac.

Cover and bake in a 350 F/175 C oven for 45 minutes or until the celeriac are tender. If you have larger celeriac, then you will need to increase your cooking time too. Alternatively, you could cook the celeriac in a pot fitted with a lid on your stovetop.

Note: we enjoyed this celeriac dish even more the next day when topped with a bit of garlicky yogurt.