Roasted celeriac, hazelnut, black garlic
The plant-based main course we would order ourselves. It is carved at the table, and nobody has ever asked what is missing.
A celeriac weighs about a kilo, looks like something dug out of a riverbed and tastes of very little raw. Wrapped in salt dough and left in the oven for four hours, it turns silky the whole way through and concentrates into something closer to a root vegetable's idea of roast meat.
The crust is broken at the table. It smells, honestly, better than it looks — which is true of a lot of the best cooking. The celeriac is carved into thick slices and brushed with a glaze made from its own trimmings, reduced with cider and black garlic until it is almost a syrup.
Underneath is a hazelnut cream: nuts toasted dark, blitzed with water and a little sherry vinegar, no dairy in it at all. The whole plate is plant-based without announcing itself, which is the only way we are interested in doing it.
On the plate
- Celeriac
- Whole, in salt dough, four hours at 180°C, rested thirty minutes.
- Glaze
- Trimmings reduced with cider, black garlic and thyme to a syrup.
- Hazelnut cream
- Dark-toasted hazelnuts, water, sherry vinegar. No dairy.
- Finish
- Pickled walnut, celery leaf and a grating of the roasted skin.
To drink
Höfgut Reiner Riesling Trocken — dry, high-acid, and a foil for anything roasted this long.
The cellar listWenham Fields
Twelve miles inland
Three generations on heavy clay, which is miserable to work and exactly what a celeriac wants. They deliver on Tuesdays.
