Food for the Ages

FFTA joined our local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) food co-op this winter. Our aim was to freshen up our dull winter palate with farm-fresh meat, milk and produce. All the while we’d be supporting local farmers, ranchers and dairies many who are out of season. 

With the CSA share, you know what you’re going to pick up every two weeks. But in one recent week’s allotment I discovered celeriac. I dumped the produce on the counter. But days passed and I wasn’t sure what to do with the fantastically gnarly roots of celeriac that seemed alive. They were beginning to age and were clamoring for attention on my counter top. With a little online research, Jamie Oliver’s recipe for a vegetable “Allotment Cottage Pie” happily swam into my search algorithm.

Jamie’s recipe includes the mysterious and bulbous celeriac – a rather under-appreciated root vegetable harvested in fall and winter. It is also known as celery root or knob celery. Happily, the results were superlative. Here is the delicious vegetarian recipe that I interpreted, Oliver’s Allotment Cottage Pie. It is a worthy dish easy to make and which the whole gang can enjoy. It’s so good that if you’re into root vegetables, this recipe will be made on repeat.

Alternatively, if you prefer a delicious and meaty shepherd’s pie recipe, check out FFTA’s Cottage Pie – Great Taste in the Guise of Leftovers

Root Vegetable Cottage Pie

Serves: 8; Preparation Time: 1 ½ hours

 

Ingredients

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

3 sprigs of fresh rosemary, rinsed

Two large leeks

Two large carrots

Two celeriac 

Three medium turnips (or 500g Swede/rutabagas)

I teaspoon cumin seed

 

10 g dried porcini mushrooms, sliced

2 ½ cups very hot water

One small, quartered onion

1 teaspoon of Marmite or vegetable Better Than Boullion

3 tablespoons tomato paste

One, 14-ounce can prepared lentils

 

2 large russet potatoes

4 ounces butter

Splash of milk

Salt and pepper

 

Directions:

1.        Preheat oven to 375°F. Heat the olive oil in a 10-inch cast iron skillet and cook the rosemary in it until it’s crisp. Remove rosemary and set aside on small plate.

2.        Trim, wash and slice the leeks into large pieces. Add into hot skillet with rosemary-flavored oil. Sweat for 5 minutes. Wash and peel all root vegetables—except the potatoes—and dice to a similar size. Add carrots, celeriac, and turnips/swede and cumin seed to skillet, season with salt and pepper and cook together for 30 minutes. 

3.        Meanwhile, in a blender:  Soak 10 g dried porcini mushrooms in 2 ½ cups hot water for 10 minutes. Add to the blender the onion, Marmite/bouillon and tomato paste. Blend until smooth. Then add contents of the blender along with one, 14-ounce can prepared lentils, juice and all, into the skillet.  (I prepared my own from dried lentils I had on hand a cup of which I cooked along with a bit of celery, carrot and onion and 2 cups of water in a small saucepan.)  

Cook until contents of skillet are carmelized, about 20 minutes more. Stir frequently, lifting up sticky bits from the bottom of the pan. 

4.      Then, peel and roughly cut the potatoes and cook in a pan of salted water for 25 minutes or until tender, drain well and mash with the butter and milk and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Spoon the mashed potatoes over the contents of the skillet and place skillet on a tray in the preheated oven. Bake for 30 minutes, or until lightly golden and bubbling at the edges. Sprinkle with crisped rosemary and serve. 

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Servings 8

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