Editor’s note: We promised another cookbook review from Linda Avery to inspire your New Year cooking and here it is: Melissa Clark’s Cook This Now, along with a recipe for grilled lamb sausages paired with an arugula and celery root salad.
Cook This Now
by Melissa Clark
photos by Andrew Scrivani
Facts: Hyperion, 416 pages, $29.99 (or Amazon at $19.79)
Photos: 21
Recipes: 137 (see Note)
Give To: cooks looking for seasonal inspiration
Cook This Now by Melissa Clark topped Epicurious’ Best Books of 2011 and Clark is all about seasonal cooking.
She sets the stage from the start with content pages listing recipes by month, when their main ingredients can be optimally obtained. Of course, there are plenty of crossovers and nothing will stop you from having November’s Carroty Mac and Cheese if you have a hankering in March.
Each recipe has an addendum, which I really like, dubbed “What Else?” This is where she notes suggestions for substitutions and other information such as buying Atlantic or Spanish mackerel rather than the larger king mackerel with a higher mercury content, or substituting a combination of a lemon and a tangerine for a similar flavor if you don’t happen to have Meyer lemons on hand.
Note: The dustcover of this book announces 120 recipes but that doesn’t include the 17 bonus recipes from Melissa Clark’s cookbook In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite
Also, for space considerations, we cut Ms. Clark’s engaging headnote down a bit. (Sorry, you’ll just have to buy the book to read every delicious word.)
Grilled Sausages with Celery Root Salad with Hazelnuts and Arugula
photo © by Andrew Scrivani
During my junior year abroad in Paris, in between gobbling warm croissants, raw milk cheeses, and countless macaroons, I ate an awful lot of celery root rémoulade.
I never bothered making celery root rémoulade when I was in Paris because it was ubiquitous and cheap. But once I got back to New York, if I wanted any more of the silky, savory salad, I’d have to tackle the homely root and whip some up myself.
And that’s the thing about celery root rémoulade. It starts with celery roots, which, with their hairy skins and muddy crevices, are never going to be the most inviting vegetable in the bin. But once those roots are peeled and grated, a quick toss with lemony, mustard-imbued mayonnaise will make the most of their inner beauty.
These days, my celery root salad of choice is a lighter take on a rémoulade. Instead a mayonnaise, I use a zippy mustard vinaigrette, and serve the salad on a bed of tangy arugula topped with hazelnuts for crunch. It’s marvelous as a first course on its own. Or to make it mealworthy, grill up your favorite sausages-lamb sausages are particularly good-and serve them alongside the salad, letting the mustard from the vinaigrette sauce the sausages and the sausage grease flavor the salad.
Serves 4
Ingredients
For the mustard vinaigrette
1 small garlic clove, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt plus 1 small pinch
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons sherry vinegar
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 1/4 pounds sausages, whatever kind you like
For the salad
1 medium celery root, trimmed and peeled (see What Else? below)
5 cups arugula or other salad green, torn into bite-size pieces
1/4 cups finely chopped toasted hazelnuts
Method
Make the mustard vinaigrette
1. With a mortar and pestle or using the flat side of a knife, smash the garlic and tiny pinch of salt to make a paste. Whisk it in a small bowl with the mustard, vinegar, and remaining salt. Whisking constantly, slowly drizzle in the oil until fully incorporated. Season with pepper.
2. Preheat the broiler. Prick the sausages all over with a fork, then lay them on a baking sheet. Broil them about 3 inches from the heat until browned on both sides, 3 to 4 minutes per side (exactly how long will depend on your oven and the thickness of your sausage).
Make the salad
1. Fit a food processor with a large grating blade; grate the celery root. You can also use a box grater, though beware your knuckles. Transfer to a large bowl and add the salad greens and hazelnuts. Pour the vinaigrette over the salad and toss well. season with more salt, lemon juice, and/or olive oil if needed before serving.
What Else?
- This recipe calls for a medium celery root, which is about the same size as a large navel orange (4 or 5 inches in diameter). If you can only get one of the giant, grapefruit-size roots, use about three-quarters of it. Or use it all; just make a little extra vinaigrette to make sure it’s well seasoned.
- Trimming the celery root is probably the hardest and most annoying thing about this recipe. You can use a sharp vegetable peeler, but a sharp paring knife is more efficient. Either way, be prepared to go deep. You will likely need to hack off about a quarter inch of the surface to get past the divots of dirt.
- This goes really well with mashed Yukon Gold potatoes. To make them, try this: boil the potatoes (unpeeled) in plenty of water until very soft. Drain, let cool, then slip them off the skins. In the same pot you used to boil the potatoes, heat some milk or chicken stock seasoned with salt until simmering. Add the potatoes and a lump of butter (use as much as you can bear; my tolerance is high), and mash with a potato masher or fork over very low heat until as smooth as you like it. We like lumps. Sometimes I leave the skin on the potatoes. Serve all at once.
