They say you need to try something 20x until you like it… I’ve had LOTS of celery, and I’m still not a convert. But… I’ve found my way to enjoy it - the list is small:
Raw, juiced, with a touch of lemon and looooads of ginger
Raw, very thinly sliced, in a salad with a PUNCHY vinaigrette that softens the herbaceous flavour.
If you’ve caught onto the pattern, my celery needs to raw, and either liquified or sliced so thin, I can see through it. I thoroughly enjoy the crisp it has, and the veg lasts absolutely ages in the fridge. It feels like one of those forgotten vegetables so most of the time it stays extremely cheap.
Today’s recipe is really what converted me into loving a celery salad (my own only though). It’s essentially dumplings with my favourite dumpling dipping sauce as dressing and bulked with some greenery, celery and chickpeas.
Even if you’re a celery hater, I hope you try this recipe, and hopefully it’ll put you on the path to conversion.
Celery, Chickpea & Dumpling Salad
Serves: 2
Prep/Cooking time: 15 mins
Substitutes:
Instead of Black Vinegar: equal parts balsamic vinegar
Instead of Celery: cucumber, tomatoes, raw courgette, sugarsnaps…
Instead of Sesame: roasted salted peanuts, toasted sunflower/pumpkin seeds
Ingredients
For the Salad:
250g Celery, trimmed and thinly sliced on a bias
12 Frozen dumplings (your favourite kind)
200g Cooked Chickpeas, drained
2 Spring Onion, trimmed and thinly sliced
2 Tbsp Toasted Sesame Seeds
10g Coriander, Optional. Leaves picked and stems thinly sliced
For the dressing:
4 Tbsp Black Vinegar
1 Tbsp Chilli Crisp
3 Tbsp Shoyu Soy Sauce
½ tbsp Toasted Sesame Oil
Method:
Add all the dressing ingredients together into a mixing bowl. Taste and season to your palate with more shoyu for savoury/saltiness, more black vinegar for tartness.
Add the chickpeas, sesame, coriander stems and celery into the dressing - don’t toss yet. Set aside.
Cook the dumplings how you like according to package instructions - steam, pan fry…
Before serving, toss the dumplings, spring onion and coriander leaves through the dressing.
Serve immediately.
I like giving celery a quick pickle like an onion; thinly sliced, rinsed in cold water, then sat in a 50/50 cold water white wine vinegar mix for 10 mins before it goes into the salad (its extra good like this with crispy chicken of some sort)