Making UGLY Ingredients SEXY

So I just made this beautiful wild garlic pesto with forage wild garlic and it's actually probably the best pesto I've ever made. I was trying to think of something I could serve it with other than pasta because, you know, it's great, pesto pasta is amazing but what could I use it for that's going to take it to new levels? I think that often pesto, because of that acidity and the sort of fattiness and the richness it goes well with bold ingredients like meats and fish and I was trying to think of what I could use because I don't eat meat or fish and this ingredient I feel like most people you've been ignoring this kind of ugly ingredient and I feel like this has the power to stand up to that rich pesto and complement it so well, especially with these unique cooking techniques I'm going to be using. This is how I'm going to elevate celeriac, celery root, that underrated vegetable to the next level. Now before we take this to the next level with those really intriguing cooking techniques we need to slow roast this until beautifully tender so I'm going to peel it and get it into a cast iron pan with some onions which I'm just going to quarter and roast for ages. Alright so this celeriac has been in the oven for about an hour and a half I've burnt the onions, that's exactly what I want because I'm going to make a burnt onion puree that's going to go so well with this dish. Into my blender I'm going to add the flesh of my onions along with a pinch of salt, some olive oil and a touch of milk. I'll then blitz that up until super smooth. This smells so intense, this needs to be luxuriously smooth though no powerful blender will get it as smooth as I want it so I have to pass it through a fine sieve. If you think there's only four ingredients in this and one of them is salt so you can probably say three ingredients and it may not look much but this little puree is packing a punch. There's little speckles of burnt onion running through it which adds a lovely fleck to the puree and just a little bit of this is enough to cause an impact on this dish. Oh my god, it's tangy because of that burntness it's not bitter because of the sweetness of the actual onion. Oh yes, I could have that on its own. Don't discard any of this pulp by the way, perfect spread on a lovely bit of sourdough. Now my celeriac has cooled, it's time for the next stage. What I'm going to do now is finely slice it on a mandolin that's why I had to wait until it was cool. Once I've finely sliced it, I'm going to pack it onto a couple of skewers before I show you what I'm going to do next. Now this is good enough to eat like this, almost in a sandwich and I want to give a shout out to my friend Derek Sarno, the mushroom master he does something like this with all kinds of root veg. I've not yet tried his deli meats with veg but I definitely would love to one day. So we want this really fine because I want to compact this onto skewers so literally wafer thin. Alright, so I'm just gathering up a few pieces and just sort of folding them on themselves just to create more layers, that's what I want. I want to load the layers of celeriac here and I'm actually going to make a beautiful dressing once I've built these skewers a sticky glaze almost that I'll brush on as they're cooking. Now it's getting exciting guys. We are nearly at the point where you're going to be hopefully mind blown. So now that we've built our skewers, I'm going to get my cast iron pan heating up behind me on the stove top because this is the second stage of cooking of the celeriac. We're going to actually caramelise them in the pan and whilst they're cooking in the pan, I'm going to brush over a beautiful glaze of miso paste maple syrup, a little oil and a few spices. I'm going to add some harissa spice blend and a little sumac plus a pinch of salt. Look at this. If you thought it couldn't get any better, well it is going to get better. This is getting me excited. I hope you're excited but I'm going to do a third and final cooking technique to inflict on these beautiful celeriacs. This is going to be worth the wait. Right, heat is going off because it's round three. We are smoking these next inside the house. You can do this outside, you don't need a fire. What we're going to do is get a wok. We're going to add some black tea to it and a splash of water. Get that over a high heat with your steaming baskets on top of it. Before you know it, smoke will be going through those baskets beautifully and that chamber is where we're going to put our celeriac skewers into to soak up that smoky flavour that's going to subtly smoke the celeriacs to add that final punch of flavour that's going to work so well with our pesto. Whilst they are smoking, I'm going to make a creamy accompaniment sauce that's going to just finish. It's going to be the cherry on top, almost the icing of this beautiful dish. Into my mixing bowl, I've got some coconut yoghurt and I'll add some lemon juice, some tahini, a pinch of cumin and some sea salt. Whip that up until light and creamy. Beautiful. Alright guys, let's see how my smoked celeriac is looking. Look at that. That is impressive. It smells like hickory smoke, like wood chips, but it's actually just tea. This is incredible. This is a traditional Chinese method of smoking with tea. They've been in there for about 15 minutes now, soaking up that smoky flavour. This is such a treat. I'm actually going to turn this off now, prepare my garnishes and get this served up. This pesto doesn't know how lucky it is getting this special treatment with all these amazing accompaniments. This dish is going to be spectacular, I think. So, on my plate first, I'm going to spread some of that lovely whipped yoghurt and tahini and then we'll just layer it. We'll put some of the beautiful onion puree and that pesto followed by the amazing smoked triple cooked celeriac. Alright, my smoked celeriac on top. And the reason we're here today, it's got to be finished with our lovely wild garlic pesto. A few pumpkin seeds to finish off just for beauty and a little crunch. Now, there is layers and layers of flavour. I am super proud of that. Let's just hope it lives up to my big talk. Let's give it a taste. This is the best bit. I'm thinking about wandering through the woodland. The effort that we put in there, that wasn't much effort. It was so much fun being in nature. And then coming up with a dish that would show off that feeling of being in the woodland and what's in season. So, let's give this a taste. A little smokiness at the end. Wow, this celeriac really does hold its own amongst some powerful flavours. Because there is, you know, you've got that burnt onion puree, but it's just a subtle sweetness and all the smoky flavours and the tang from the wild garlic. And then it just finishes off with that smokiness, plus the coolness of that cream. I'm really happy I did that last minute addition, actually. And I thought I may miss a crunch, but actually, I think this has got enough texture. You've got a stickiness to the outside of the celeriac and a beautiful, tender texture on the centre. Wow. I am overjoyed with this. I'm going to beg Tom, Cameraman Tom, to taste this on camera. All I need, Tom, is just one little word for the audience so I'm not just blowing my own trumpet. Please. The perks of the job. Wow. Where do I start? Enjoy. Got a bit of everything there. Oh, that is heavenly. Wow. Well, guys, thank you for watching that journey through wild garlic fantasy land. I hope we did the wild garlic plant justice. Just processing all the flavours. Three sauces, cooked three times. You know what they say about the number threes, right? No. I don't know either.