Celery Root Salad with Mustard Sauce | Céleri Rémoulade

Celery root salad with mustard sauce or céleri rémoulade is another raw vegetable salad written by David Lebovitz in My Paris Kitchen. While celery root is not a popular root vegetable in the U.S., the celery root salad is widely available in bistros throughout France. Since we made a celery root soup the other day and know where to get fresh supply of celery roots, making a raw salad sounds right.

I took out the spiralizer to cut the cleaned celery root into spirals of noodle instead of cutting the root by hand into match sticks. The operation went smoothly; although the texture of celery root is a bit denser than that of beets or potatoes and requires more muscle strength to keep the spiralizer cranking. The rest was no sweat.

Toss the celery root slices (about 2 pounds) in a dressing made with: two kinds of mayonnaise (1/2 cup), two kinds of mustard (3 tablespoons), homemade créme fraîche (1/4 cup), freshly squeezed lemon juice (2 tablespoons) and seasoning. That’s all there is to the celery root salad. I garnish the salad with dill.

I keep two varieties of mayonnaise and mustard in the fridge. Japanese and American mayonnaise and grainy and Dijon mustard. Since I don’t have créme fraîche on hand, but there are heavy cream and yogurt around. So I make the cultivated cream by combining heavy cream and spoonfuls of yogurt (or buttermilk if you have it) in a jar. Shake them up vigorously for two minutes and wait for at least eight hours for the cream to ferment and thicken at room temperature. The resulting cream is rich and light and easily spreadable at the same time. Obviously, the cost is much lower than the store-bought variety.

A chef friend suggests that I should give Japanese mayonnaise a try and I did. Japanese mayonnaise uses soy-based vegetable oil and many of the same ingredients as its American counterpart. There is no added water and uses apple or rice vinegar rather than distilled vinegar. Japanese mayonnaise also uses egg yolks rather than whole eggs. As a result, it is richer and slightly sweeter.

As you can tell, the celery root salad takes on a creamier texture and a yellow tone due to the addition of Japanese mayonnaise. My husband likes the crunchiness of the salad — but he can’t identify the mystery vegetable. Of course, he has a penchant for anything with mayonnaise in the mix.

I’m linking this post to Cook-the-book-Fridays where our friends there are making and comparing notes on our versions of the celery root salad.

Print Recipe

Homemade Créme Fraîche

Ingredients

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons buttermilk or sour cream or yogurt

Instructions

1

Combine heavy cream, buttermilk or yogurt in a jar.

2

Cover and shake the jar, like shaking a cocktail, for 2 minutes.

3

Let the jar stand at room temperature for at least 8 hours or overnight, until the cream has thickened.

4

This créme fraîche will keep under refrigeration for at least one week