Seasonal treats

Being woken up on a Saturday morning because a telephone company technician is hammering on the brick outside your bedroom window kinda sucks. Especially when the technician isn't there for something you want done; at least then you can deal with it. *sigh* Know what made it worse? We were out of coffee. This meant we did the only thing we could do: we went to the market! Being severly under caffeinated, we wisely sat down and had some of the Liquid Black Gold before making any decisions. I love hanging out at the market while people watching. Since I usually avoid being there on the weekends, particularly first thing in the morning as I don't like crowds, today was a good day to give it a go. It was still fairly chilly out, at least until you got into the sunshine, and now is prime Cabane a Sucre season, so it was just nicely populated. While I was snooping around, my husband, who was paying more attention than I was, noticed something else that is a seasonal delight: snow crab! From the begining of April until the middle of May, you can purchase live or freshly cooked snow crab from Rimouski at the Atwater Market from Capitaine Crabe, who's stall is right outside the north doors, closest to the pet food mart, Boufido. Having grown up on Vancouver Island, I truly enjoy fresh crab, but even there, snow crab is special! We probably would have gotten it anyways, but the fact that they were charging only $6.95/lb sealed the deal. We picked up 2 live ones, and the fixings for a celery root remoulade, and some GF beer (La Messagere Rousse to be precise) since I had a new recipe for baguette that I had been wanting to try out anyway.

 

 

Toss in some garlic butter and we were good!  We actually toyed with using this as our 100 Mile Dinner, as the celeriac and the crab fell into the local parameters. We certainly could have made up some mayonaise, but as the remoulade calls for sour cream and the baguette would require flours that the packages tell me are milled in the US, we decided to simply enjoy it as a seasonal dinner with local flair. Win!
 

The crab was fantastic, the remoulade is fast becoming one of our favourite salads and while the baguette recipe is good, I am not a fan of the flour mix for it. I got a new cookbook a while back, and I'm still trying it out, so I won't go into it too much, but well. We'll have to see. Still, it certainly made for a pretty picture! The recipe actually makes 2 loaves, so we will be having french toast for breakfast tomorrow I think. I really want to figure out how to make it taste the way I remember it! If I had to take a guess, it is most likely the sorghum flour I'm not liking. It has a weird aftertaste that I can't quite put a name to. Sorghum is a type of grass that is raised for it's millet like grain and as fodder plants. Makes me think of some of the bean flours I've tried. Regardless, I'm going to play around with it some more.

 

Having said that, I am not going to post up the baguette recipe today (as I had planned), but will give you the remoulade recipe instead! Warning: if you don't have a mandolin, go get one! This is not a recipe I would want to have to do by hand. If you haven't got a mandolin, you could always use a cheese grater, but as this is very like a coleslaw, having the celery root nicely match-sticked really is worth it. I think you can even find mandolins at the dollar store, so go get one. You'll wonder how you ever got on without it. This is from Diane Morgan's book Roots, which I also think you should go out and get, but I just really like root vegetables. And cookbooks. And food.

 

Celery Root Remoulade

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/2 cup sour cream (I use Tofutti)
• 1 tablespoon whole grain mustard
• 1 tablespoon diced cornichons (gerkhins will work)
• 1 tablespoon diced* capers
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 large celery root, peeled and cut into match-stick sized slices
• 1 tablespoon chopped chives
• 1 tablespoon chopped flat leaf parsley
• 1 tablespoon chopped tarragon

*I do not bother dicing the capers. They are small enough!

Mix the mayonnaise, sour cream, mustard, cornichons, capers, vinegar and lemon juice in a medium bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Peel and grate the celery root, then add it along with the chives, parsley and tarragon to the mayonnaise mix. Mix well, cover and refridgerte for at least an hour before serving, though this can be made up to 2 days in advance, and gets better on the second day.

Enjoy!