About the ingredients

Celeriac:

I don’t know if you are familiar with celeriac, I don’t often see recipes using it in the food blog world. Normally I read recipes where people only use the celery stalks. That is sad because the root tastes like a hundred times better and you can do so much more with it than you can do with the stalks.

In Romanian and German cooking celery roots are actually used much more than the stalks. There are plenty of recipes where these roots play a central part and I do use them a lot in autumn.

Celeriac is tasty, healthy and quite cheap right now. I’ve eaten it raw in salads just like this one, made creamy soups with it, used it alongside other veggies in vegetable soups, stews or casseroles, roasted it with carrots and maple syrup, mashed it etc.

And celeriac is a vital ingredient when making chicken stock or bone broth, I could not even start making stock if I didn’t have any celeriac.

The celery roots that I normally find here are huge, so I don’t often manage to use whole head in a go. And because I hate letting food spoil or throwing it away I always cut the leftovers either in fine cubes to use for soups and casseroles or in big chunks for making broth or stock. I pack everything in freezer bags, place them in the freezer and use them when necessary.

Cheese:

I used Bergkäse, which is a cheese produced in the Alps. It has quite a strong but exquisite flavor, especially when you buy it directly at the market, cut off huge cheese wheels. You keep it in the fridge, wrapped in some special cheese foil, and every time you open the fridge you spend a few seconds wondering why the kitchen suddenly smells like feet. 🙂

If you cannot find this „mountain“ or Alp cheese, feel free to use another strong flavored cheese.

I googled a bit and found out that Bergkäse include the better known Fontina or Gruyere cheese.

Some more salads?

In a small bowl mix the oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and sugar. Adjust the taste.
Chop the lettuce into small pieces. Mix with ½ of the dressing and arrange on two large plates.
Grate the cheese and the celeriac, not too finely. Arrange on top of the salad.
Chop the walnuts and the pear roughly and place on top of the celeriac.
Drizzle with the remaining dressing.
Sprinkle with chopped parsley before serving.