Roasted Celeriac, Mushroom Broth, Sautéed Mushrooms, Macadamia and Nori - Chef Recipe by Nick Raitt.

Ingredients

800g-1kg whole celeriac
1 bunch thyme, half for stock
100mL olive oil
Sea salt and black pepper to taste
400g oyster mushrooms for sauté
300g button mushrooms for stock
1 fresh chilli, sliced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
100mL good quality soy sauce
50mL mirin
50mL olive oil
2 shallots, peeled and finely sliced
200mL unthickened cream
1 bunch Tuscan kale
3 sprigs each parsley and dill for garnish
1.5L water
4 nori sheets
200g unsalted butter
70g macadamia nuts

Method

Roasted celeriac:

Preheat oven to 200 C.

Wash celeriac and cut off any areas around the bottom if you can see dirt still on them.

Cut the celeriac straight down the middle into halves. Take some tin foil and tear pieces off that are big enough to wrap each half of celeriac individually. Keep back one large half of celeriac for the purée.

Lay your pieces of foil on the kitchen bench and put around 1 tablespoon olive oil in the centre, season the oil with salt and pepper and lay a couple of thyme sprigs. Put your celeriac halves face down in the middle and wrap the foil around them up to the top. Pinch them closed so the foil keeps them moist in the oven.

Cook in the oven for 1.25 hours on the kitchen rack, this will help the air circulate all around them.

Once they come out, open the foil and allow them to cool to room temperature. Leave the oven on 160 C for use later.

Mushroom stock:

In a heavy-based saucepan or pot, add the olive oil, garlic, peppercorns and chilli. Cook on low heat for 5 minutes without colour.
Add the shallots and salt, raise the heat, stirring regularly until the shallots start to soften.

Lower the heat again and add the mushrooms, cook for 5 minutes.

Add soy, mirin, thyme, one sheet of roughly torn nori and water and bring to the boil, cook on a low simmer for 45 minutes, strain immediately.

Celeriac purée:

Take the leftover half celeriac and cut off any skin, roughly chop and add to a pot with the 200mL cream and 200mL water.

Put on the heat and bring to the boil, lower to low, cover and cook for 20 minutes, or until the celeriac is soft and most of the liquid has cooked down. If the celeriac is cooked but there is still a lot of liquid, just remove the lid and cook for a little longer until it looks like the celeriac has absorbed most liquid.

Blend the celeriac with a hand blender, while adding 100g unsalted butter, salt and pepper.

While all of those are cooking, it’s a good time to arrange the rest of the dish.

Take oyster mushrooms and if there is a lot of unusable base on them, cut most of this off. If not just take your mushrooms and tear the big ones into strips, the medium ones in half and leave the small ones whole, that way they’ll all cook in the same amount of time.
Pick herbs into an airtight container and keep in the fridge.

Put macadamia nuts in the oven for 5 minutes, toss them and cook for 5 more minutes. Allow to cool, then roughly chop.

Take three sheets of nori, one sheet at a time. Cut in half, then cut those halves again so you end up with wide strips. Stack the strips on top of each other and with a sharp knife cut through them as finely as you can. Don’t worry too much if they’re not perfectly cut, it’ll still look good.

Put a saucepan on high heat and add remaining butter. Once bubbling, add the mushrooms and some sea salt, toss these together and sauté on high until they’ve lost their firmness. Remove from the pan onto a plate and set aside.

Take celeriac out of the foil and cut away any of the remaining skin, cut into thick wedges.

Heat the pan used for the mushrooms again, add a little olive oil and put pieces of celeriac in, cook them on high until a deep golden colour, turn and do the other side. Remove from the pan.

Heat up mushroom broth.

Blanch kale in salted boiling water for 2 minutes, strain water off well, add some olive oil and a little sea salt.

Plating:

Put mushrooms and celeriac back in the oven 4-5 minutes before plating.

Preferably, use a large dinner bowl or plates with high sides.

Put a generous dollop of your purée in the middle of each bowl and use a spoon to spread it around the base of the bowl.

Take kale and disperse across the base of six plates, the dish does need to be balanced so if you’ve ended up with an overly large bunch of kale, feel free to keep some back for leftovers. Leftover broth and kale could take some soba noodles for a nice warming snack later.

Place mushrooms into the bowls in three piles per bowl.

Take celeriac and break each piece in half, naturally arrange them, leaning against the mushrooms, or lying flat on the bowl depending on how you like the look.

Sprinkle some macadamia nuts over the celeriac.

From a height sprinkle the nori over the dish.

Spoon 1 tablespoon good olive oil over the celeriac and mushrooms.

Garnish with herbs.

Pour your broth in a serving jug and serve at the table, pouring the broth into the bowl for extra theatre.

Recipe provided by Josef Chromy Restaurant