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.
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