Watery. Stringy. Bitter.
These insults are regularly lobbed at celery by picky provocateurs, myself included. Provided as an afterthought alongside buffalo wings, or stuck unceremoniously into a bloody Mary, it’s the last vegetable I would ever pick off the crudites platter. Even raw cauliflower florets have more appeal when angling for that last smear of hummus.
Limp stalks with little flavor to speak of, they’re all fiber, no flavor. Digestible dental floss, if you will.
Despite that, somehow, celery has wormed its way into the very foundation of French cuisine, thus cementing its place in the greater culinary canon abroad. Making up a third of the classic mirepoix, it seems like every soup, stew, sauce, braise, and beyond calls for one or two of these stringy green sticks. That’s how I end up with an abundance of the very vegetable I despise: Find a new recipe, buy a whole bundle, use about 1/30th of it. Rinse and repeat.
Still, I do staunchly believe that anything can be made delicious with the right treatment. Besides, I’m not one to waste perfectly good food, even if it’s not my favorite. Borrowing a page from childhood snacks to appeal to basic cravings, I sought inspiration from good old ants on a log. Thick, sticky peanut butter filling the the void with sweet raisin “ants” marching down the line, celery is merely the vehicle, adding mostly crunch, with a subtle salty undertone.
All grown up in a simple, crisp slaw, this is the recipe to win over celery haters. Texture is absolutely essential, no matter how you prep your celery; floppy stalks are never acceptable. If they get a bit tired waiting around in the vegetable crisper, slice about an inch off the bottoms and pop them in a jar of ice water, like a vegetal bouquet. In about an hour, the cells will absorb water and reinflate, good as new.
Having “too much” celery just became a very good problem, indeed.