An experiment in the kitchen. Tried to make according to the recipe of the best Lithuanian chef – see what really came out

Here is the chef of the best Lithuanian restaurant “Džiaugsmas” Martynas Praškevičius shared the recipe for celery root with cheese sauce and black pepper. So we also tried to prepare a restaurant dish like that. Looking at the recipe, it obviously won’t be easy. But, as the saying goes, who does not risk does not drink champagne!

Celery root has never been prepared in the home kitchen, so let’s see if the first pancake is smoked.

Martynas Praškevičius, the chef of the best Lithuanian restaurant “Džiaugsmas”, shares a recipe for celery root with cheese sauce and black pepper:

• Fried celery root (4 people)
• Celery root large 1 pc.
• Salt
• Olive oil

Cut the celery into thin slices with a Japanese vegetable slicer. If you don’t have one, fry the celery whole and slice it after it’s baked. Lay the sliced ​​celery leaves like lasagna. Sprinkle salt on each leaf. Grease the layered sheets with oil, roll in aluminum foil and bake in a preheated oven at +180 C for 40 minutes. (If the celery is not sliced, it should take about 5 more minutes to bake.)

Cool the celery and cut it into pieces of the desired size.

Cheese sauce

• Grated hard or semi-hard cheese 200 g
• Cream 500 g
• Salt

Add the cheese and cream to the Thermomix and beat on speed 4 until the temperature reaches +80 C.
If you don’t have such an appliance, heat the sauce in a saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, until the cheese melts, clean with a hand grinder until smooth. Season the sauce with salt, cool.

Presentation of celery root (1 serving)

• Fried celery root 120 g
• Cheese sauce 100 g
• Black pepper, crushed 2 g
• Marinated elderflowers (or capers)
• Clean, chopped and toasted hazelnuts
• Olive oil

From the celery leaves, form a portion of celery and place in a hot pan with oil. Bake on both sides until golden brown. Pat the fried celery dry with a paper towel and set aside. In another dry pan, sauté the peppers to remove the sharpness and reveal the smell of the peppers, add the cheese sauce and melt while stirring. If the sauce is too thick, add a little water.

Pour the sauce into the serving plate, put the celery on top of the sauce, season with oil. Garnish the plate with pickled elderberry blossoms (they can also be replaced with capers). Sprinkle with the chopped hazelnuts.

We did everything as described in the recipe. Step by Step. Of course, we didn’t have a Japanese vegetable slicer so we had to use a normal kitchen knife and try to cut everything as finely as possible.

All this trouble: peeling the celery root, cutting it, baking it in the oven, dividing it into portions, baking it, preparing the decorative elements, making the necessary sauce, it took about 2.5-3 hours. You can get tired and hungry in so long.

Still, the result on the plate was a pleasant surprise. I didn’t think a main dish made with vegetables could be that good. We are used to the accent of the dish being meat or fish, and everything else is just a garnish. However, the food thus prepared was surprising for its creaminess and taste integrity, and the celery root, baked in the oven and fried in a pan, simply melted in your mouth.

If you order such a dish in a restaurant, I assume they will send you if you bring it only after 3 hours or if you leave it before arriving. Well, there are professionals working in restaurants and they know their job perfectly, so I have never had to wait 3 hours. So as soon as the quarantine is over, head back to the restaurants and experience the joy. Entrust your taste buds to the professionals. After all, it is much better.