A springlike soup from the depths of the winter root cellar: Celeriac Pear Soup

A winter root vegetable—celeriac—and a winter-hoarded fruit, pears—create a fresh, springlike, creamy soup. Recipe below.

[su_dropcap style=”flat”]C[/su_dropcap]eleriac is one of those leap-of-faith vegetables. It’s not very well known—even goes by various aliases, including celery root. It’s round, it’s ugly, you dig it out of the ground, for Chrissake. For a really long time, it never even occurred to me to give it a try. That door was shut tight.

Then ten, maybe 15 years ago the door cracked open just a tad, when in some now-gone (possibly macrobiotic?) restaurant in Los Angeles, I had a fantastic celeriac salad, that was so good, so fresh and interesting and crunchy and different from anything else I’d ever had, that it totally lit up my curiosity. Well, every attempt I made to duplicate it was an utter flop. Bitter, gross, but on the other hand, a huge waste of money and time. Yet I went on to try other approaches. Mashed. Baked. Celeriac Anna. Those were also colossal flops. Finally, three or four years back, I decided to just knock it off for keeps.

Until recently, when we were in Detroit, at the Eastern Market, just noodling around, and we happened to find—and purchase—a couple of nice, small, strangely handsome celeriac. One second, they were on the farmer’s table, and the next, they were in our tote.

So here I was, again in possession of not one, but two round, raw celeriac, and now what? I determined not to repeat my (numerous) mistakes. I wanted something not just tasty but something that felt like spring. This recipe, based on one on the online magazine Olive, fits the bill. The soup is truly fresh, a balance of earthy, savory and a bit sweet, with the bright promise of spring—especially surprising since it is built from a winter root vegetable and essentially a winter fruit, pears harvested in the fall and rationed out over winter.

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Celeriac Pear Soup

A winter root vegetable—celeriac—and a winter-hoarded fruit, pears—create a fresh, springlike, creamy soup.

Course Soup

Servings 4 to 6 as a starter

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 3/4 cup minced shallots
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 inch of fresh ginger, peeled and minced
• two smallish celeriac, about 1 pound total, peeled and cut into matchsticks, plus a little vinegar for prepping (see Kitchen Notes)
• 4 ripe pears, peeled, cored and coarsely chopped
• 2 cups chicken stock—plus more as needed (see Kitchen Notes)
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• chives, chopped, for garnish

Instructions

• Heat the olive oil in a large stock pot or Dutch oven over medium flame. Sauté the shallots, garlic and ginger, stirring frequently, until the shallots are translucent, but not colored. Add in the celeriac, pears and just enough stock to cover everything—you may need more stock. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer.
• Cook until the celeriac is very tender, about 30 minutes. Taste it—if it’s still crunchy, keep cooking—celeriac can be stubborn.
• When the celeriac is completely tender, turn off the heat and let the soup cool until it’s safe to handle. Process the soup in a blender until it is uniformly smooth, working in batches, if needed. Season with salt and a little pepper. Reheat gently, then ladle into soup bowls and sprinkle with chives. Serve.

Kitchen Notes

Buying celeriac—and why you need vinegar. When buying celeriac, choose small ones. Softball size is good. Bigger is definitely not better. They should also be firm and heavy for their size. When you are prepping celeriac, have at hand a bowl of acidulated water—water with a dash of lemon juice or white vinegar in it. As you peel and cut up the celeriac, put it in the water straightaway to prevent browning. Drain well just ahead of cooking.

Can I substitute vegetable broth? The original recipe this draws upon is vegan, based on vegetable stock. You can do that, but I wanted the subtle polish that chicken stock brings.

Does it have to be chives? You can also use fresh parsley, but that seemed to me to be too close to the flavor of the celeriac. And the chives are just starting to come up in our yard, making this a no brainer.

Need cream? Nope. In the experimental phase, I tried this with a dash of cream and, you know, it didn’t make it any better. This is creamy and delicious, all on its own.