Celery Root Hashbrowns

I have been trying to eat healthier again this past week, particularly after enjoying the delightful Dulce de Bacon Milkshake of my last post. After trying and failing, I came to the realization that I eat a lot of carbohydrates, and not the good kinds. As an effort to cut down on excess starches while still enjoying my favorite meals, Jeremy suggested that I make some hashbrowns from celery root. As unappealing as this sounded at the time, I inquired more about it. He said that he heard somewhere that you can make hashbrowns from celery root and that they have one third of the carbs potatoes have. So, I decided to try it as an experiment in breakfast foods. And the results were....shockingly good. The celery root smells like celery, but it doesn't taste like it. It's kind of potato-y in taste, but has a little bit of a sweet kick to it, which I really loved. In fact, I daresay that I even liked these hashbrowns better than regular ones because of the nice sweet and salty combination. The root by itself looks pretty strange, the closest similarity I can draw is to a mandrake from Harry Potter. So sad and wrinkly-looking. But there is tasty root flesh under those wrinkles, and I included another video tutorial in this post about how to hack away at all the little roots and peel the main root for use. It can be viewed in HD, as well. Just press play and to the right of the play button is the settings tab, where 360p is usually automatically selected, click and select 1080p instead. Enjoy!

Click Here For Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

2 Celery Roots

Vegetable Oil for Frying

1 Teaspoon Cavender's Greek Seasoning, Salt-Free

1/4 Teaspoon Salt

Ketchup (optional)

The video below demonstrated the peeling process described here, and it can be viewed in HD for extra root-action. To peel the celery root, begin by cut the celery sprouts off of the top of the root and discard them. Hold the top of the celery root in your left hand and cut the hanging roots off with your right hand, making sure to cut down and away from your left hand. Continue cutting until all of the loose hanging roots have been removed. There are also crevasses in the bottom where fine roots are stuck, to get them out simply cut two opposing angles into the root that meet underneath the crevasse, then pull up gently with the knife and the crevasse will fall out out. Then use a vegetable peeler to peel the remaining skin off of the root.

Wash the celery roots and grate them over a large bowl. Mix in the Cavender's and salt. Set aside. Pour the vegetable oil into the frying pan until the bottom of the pan is just coated in oil. Heat the pan over medium-high heat and add 1 cup of the hashbrown mixture, flattening it and evenly spreading it out over the surface of the pan with a metal spatula.

Fry for 7 to 12 minutes on each side, until golden brown. Remove the hashbrown patty from the pan with the metal spatula and place it on a plate lined with paper towels. Add more oil to the pan after each hashbrown because the original oil will have been absorbed by the celery root. Repeat this process until all of the hashbrown mixture has been fried. Serve with a side of ketchup for dipping.