Carrot, Celeriac, and Potato Mash

A comfort food side dish of root vegetables simply simmered and mashed with butter and cream.

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One of my favorite subjects is food. No surprise there. When I meet someone new, especially someone whose people did not grow up a stove's throw from where we are chatting, I like to ask about favorite foods. 

If you've lived in places far different from where you grew up, I'll ask you about what foods you  remember from your time away. I'm deliberately avoiding use of the term 'exotic' here, because Arkansas and Louisiana are as exotic to me as British Columbia and Nepal.

As I chat with folks about food, I find I am more interested in those comfort foods that we crave, not Your Most Memorable Meal [unless it was memorable because of the warm feelings evoked of good company and good flavors--not dramatic showmanship].

This comforting side dish came about because of a conversation with the guy doing routine maintenance on my furnace. He's from England, living and working as an HVAC technician in the US, and when I brought up what foods he misses most, he said his mom's celeriac mash. He described it as a simple dish of celeriac, potatoes, and carrots. Mashed together with a bit of butter and cream.

I had a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share celeriac in the crisper and decided to make this for my family. It is simple, homey, humble, unassuming--an excellent addition to a plate of food. Taken by itself it could be considered boring to some, but I don't need my food to be always in my face. This was a nice companion to roasted chicken. It would be terrific in an array of Thanksgiving sides. Leftovers would make a nice crust for an egg casserole, like my Hatch Chile, Egg and Potato Casserole.

For more recipes using carrots, please see my Carrot Recipes Collection. For more recipes using Celeriac, please see my Celeriac Recipes Collection. For more recipes using potatoes, please see my Potato Recipes Collection. These collections are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating seasonally from the farm share, the farmer's market, and garden abundance. I'm sharing more side dishes on Pinterest and my FB page. For more information on How to Use This Blog, click here.

Carrot, Celeriac, and Potato Mash

Ingredients

• ½ cup carrot chunks
• 2 cups celeriac chunks (peel and cube 1 large or 2 medium celeriac)
• 2 cups potato chunks (peel and cube into about the same size as the celeriac)
• 2 Tablespoons butter (I used unsalted)
• 1 Tablespoon cream
• salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Place vegetables in a large pot. Cover with water and add a generous pinch of salt.
2. Bring to a gentle boil over medium heat and simmer, covered, until chunks are tender. This took me about 20 minutes.
3. Drain the vegetables. It's probably a good idea to save the water, but I did not. Return to the pot or transfer to a bowl (whichever place you want to mash in).
4. Add the butter and cream to the hot vegetables.
5. Using a potato masher or sturdy fork, mash everything together. I like the rustic look of the carrots and didn't want to turn the whole thing orange, so I used the potato masher. 
6. Taste and see how you like it--you'll probably want to add salt and pepper, or at least have them handy at the table.