Sweet and sour celery salad

A new low, mingled with a new high: I had to leave the country to finally carve out time to write one single blog post. On the other hand, I have finally left the country after fourteen years (to which I strenuously add, no one is owed a little holiday! It just really felt as though I had completely expired, viability-wise.) My partner and I are in Sri Lanka; I write this overlooking an exquisite beach in pleasantly stifling evening heat, as though I’m a more functional, yet objectively less culturally impactful, Ernest Hemingway.

In the month of September, I went to Christchurch for the WORD festival, went home briefly for Mum’s 70th, sent two lit4lit newsletters, recorded my Hoods Landing audiobook, and left the country (around working full-time and then some), which is why it’s been so long since I last blogged. And, why we’re lucky this recipe, via Ixta Belfrage, for sweet and sour celery salad is SO sensational, otherwise, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t remember a single thing about it or which adjectives to apply to it. Fortunately, I am always rich in adjectives.

Now, this might be a recipe that I have to convince you of—so please, let me. We all know celery is necessarily savoury in a soffritto or holy trinity or mirepoix or vege soup. It’s also mostly water, which means you’re either dealing with it cold, crunchy and watery, or hot, floppy and watery—and here, it’s the latter. But! So excellent is Ixta Belfrage’s recipe—which I’ve barely tampered with—that you’ll be delighted to consume an entire head of celery for dinner.

The reasons I say this so confidently are as follows. First, the pan’s high heat, which lends a slightly charred and previously unknown intensity to the celery. Next, and again, bear with me here: the raisins. You either can handle fruit in your dinner or you can’t, but the swollen dried raisins, rolled through cracked black pepper, brisk celery leaves, and a delicate shower of chives, are integral to this tasting as exciting as it does.

The dressing is the next crucial part—sticky maple or honey, plenty of lemon and soy and chilli, but somehow it doesn’t quite click into place until it’s coating those bronzed sticks of celery, proving that celery’s usual backdrop can be successfully moved to the foreground with the right partners. Finally, the pine nuts add gentle crunch and the sort of convincing luxury that’s rather necessary when you’re feeding people a plate of warm celery. You’d think, at this point, that the dollops of smoothly grainy ricotta would also be necessary from a similar perspective, but having tried it both ways, this is truly compelling without it: also vegan.

I know a theme of “hear me out” under-serves both your presumed good taste and the easy trust one might have in Ixta Belfrage’s ability to write a great recipe, but in case you need it one more time: hear me out, this plate of warm celery and raisins is delicious and elegant and quite straightforward to make. It’s brilliant in the middle of winter when it feels as though nothing green will ever pass your plate again; but if you’re wilting like a celery stick in high heat then it’s a joyfully hydrating dinner on its own; otherwise consider it a captivating salad that can be made main or side.

For more recipes along the hear-me-out theme:

Sweet and sour celery salad

A plate of warm celery? I mean, yes, but if you don’t trust me when I say this is incredible, you could at least trust Ixta Belfrage, from whom the recipe comes via her wonderful book Mezcla. With its textures and abundant yet balanced flavours, I could happily eat this every single week. Make it, and see why. As always, before shopping for these or any ingredients, I recommend checking out the Boycott Aotearoa zines so you know which brands to avoid.

  • 60g golden (or regular) raisins
  • 1 medium celery bunch, with leaves
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 25g pine nuts
  • A handful of basil leaves—about 5g
  • 1 tablespoon fresh chives
  • 1/4 teaspoon chili flakes (Urfa if you can get them)
  • 125g ricotta (optional)

Dressing:

  • 2 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon maple syrup or honey
  • 1 garlic clove
  • Plenty of freshly ground black pepper (“about 8 twists”)

1: Place the 60g raisins in a small bowl and cover with boiling water. Set aside.

2: Remove the leaves of the celery, and set aside a handful of particularly bright and fresh leaves (roughly 10g) for adding to the salad later. Chop 400g of the celery stems into 4cm pieces on the diagonal.

3: Heat up a large, heavy frying pan. Toast the 25g pine nuts briefly until warmed and golden brown—should take a minute or two, tops—then set them aside. Using the same pan, increase the heat to warm the tablespoon of olive oil and add the celery, prodding it into a single layer (or as close to as possible) and let it fry for 4 minutes, undisturbed. Sprinkle with the 1/4 teaspoon salt, give it a vigorous stir, and let it cook for another 5 minutes or until browned and lightly charred in places. Remove from the heat. At this point you can add a lid so that it seals in the heat to let the celery wilt further; I didn’t have a lid and so didn’t do this.  

4: Next, whisk together the dressing ingredients—the 2 tablespoons each of soy sauce, lemon juice and olive oil, plus a tablespoon of maple syrup. Finely dice or mince the garlic clove and stir that in, too, along with the black pepper. Drain the raisins, and finely chop them—though I like to leave them whole, as per the photos. Throw the raisins and dressing into the pan of celery and stir. Let it sit for about 5-10 minutes for everything to soak in.  

5: Finally, assemble. To the celery, add most of your reserved celery leaves—chopped if they’re overly large—your basil leaves and the tablespoon of chives. Turn all of this into a large serving plate—something wide and shallow and platter-y is best here, rather than deep and bowl-like—and sprinkle with the 1/4 teaspoon chilli flakes and spoonfuls of ricotta. Finish with the reserved toasted pine nuts and the remaining leaves and chives.

Serves: Now, the original recipe says it serves 4, but I can eat this entirely by myself quite happily. I’d pitch this at serving two people for a light meal—maybe some bread on the side—or four people as an accompaniment.

Notes:

  • This really is just as good without the ricotta if you want to make it vegan—there’s so much going on that you’re not sitting around waiting for the ricotta to come in and save the day, if that makes culinary sense. On the other hand; if you have a vegan alternative you could and should add it here (I suggest this cashew chive spread as a starting point.)
  • Ixta’s original recipe calls for pul biber and Urfa chilli flakes: these are not so easy to get hold of in the average supermarket in New Zealand but I’m noting them here should you have access to a more diverse range of stores; I’ve used a pinch of regular chilli flakes and a pinch of gochugaru, both were great.

what I’ve been listening to lately:

Anne’s Song, by Faith No More. I am on the record as being a Mosley-FNM preferrer (with one enormous and unsurprising exception: Epic), and what Chuck Mosley lacked in octaves he amply made up for in charisma and the sense that no one else in the world could carry this off, right here, right now (like, look at the difference in ease in the music video between him and the rest of the band—including the way that this song feels so adlibbed that it’s almost shocking he was able to lipsync it for the video.) Aside from Mosley’s presence, I love that this song zigs and zags along, never quite settling on one thing, all the better for it.  

This Time, by Taral. Taral Hicks’ voice is like a silk scarf put through a juicer, and I cannot get enough of the hypnotic up-and-down of the chorus. This whole album, in fact, is a silky gem and it’s great foolishness on the universe’s part that we don’t have more albums from her.  

Civilian by Adam Pascal. Broadway stars who release solo albums tend to uneasily bridge the gap between the pop genre and the sensibilities of the stage (though of course, I love listening to many of them! It’s its own genre, to be honest). Pascal, veering towards rock rather than pop, and having come up in live music before being cast in RENT in 1996, has a head start in writing music that you could trick musical theatre non-enthusiasts into listening to. Anyway! That aside, this song is great, with its Yes-ish proggy tempo changes and close harmonies, while showcasing the mozzarella-cheese-pull elasticity of Pascal’s vocals.

PS: Feeling hopeless is a luxury that serves no one but those perpetrating the hopelessness, despite the hopelessness being accelerated beyond comprehension daily. The people of Palestine need us now more than ever; aside from directly sending money when you see personal videos pop up as you scroll, you can support:

  • ReliefAid’s Gaza Appeal, who are connected with teams on the ground in Gaza.
  • Convoys of Good, another registered NZ charity distributing aid.
  • Please visit Chuffed—they’re one of the few spaces providing families in Palestine with official crowd-funding platforms, as well as for other urgent causes.
  • As I’ve already mentioned, you can also demonstrate your control and power through the absence of your dollars. Boycott Zine Aotearoa has helpfully put together two comprehensive free zines so you can quickly see who to studiously avoid when buying food, drinks, household items and beauty products.
  • You can also check out the Pro-Palestine Business Aotearoa account by the same people for a very solid list of places to actively focus your consumer attention on.
The message "If you're not pro-palestine don't read my food blog" in red font against a light pink background.

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