In the kitchen with Elisa
Crunchy Celery Salad
A healthy winter salad with a delicious combination of flavors
What do you think about celery? Do you like it or do you hate it? If you like it, do you only like it cooked or do you also like it raw?
I have come across so many posts and articles about celery and all of its benefits lately that I decided to give it another chance. I did not like celery as a child and I never kind of thought of giving it a second try as an adult. I don´t actually know why, I think I just never made anything that I thought would need celery. But then I was making a Christmas pork roast and all the recipes I had looked through had onions, carrots and celery, so I had to get it. Cooked celery is very different from raw celery, but I really liked the taste of that cooked celery in the roast and so I thought I would also try it raw.
We have a small corner shop just a couple of minutes away from our house, where they sell all kind of vegetables and fruits. Usually if I want some beautiful veggies or fruits to showcase in my recipes then that is the place where I go. And there I went and got me some celery. I was also surprised that the celery they sold was like a big bush, because it had all of the leafs on and not just the stems, as most of the grocery stores sell them here. I came home and I researched whether those leafy parts can also be eaten and I found that they can and should be eaten, and that they are great for a salad.
The original plan was to make a green celery salad. So my thoughts were like a bit of iceberg salad, some celery and maybe green apple to give it a nice lightly sour taste. But when I was imagining this salad in my mind, I just couldn´t deal with it having so little color. That is when the pomegranate happened. And let me just tell you, if you have never added pomegranate to your salad, man, you are missing on so much! Carrot was my last addition, when after adding the pomegranate I thought the salad still needs either something yellow or something orange, so the carrot.
Oh, before I forget, and before you make your kitchen a mess with all the pomegranate juice while cutting it, check out this quick tutorial on how to open the pomegranate very easy and without the mess.
I hope your words after eating this salad will be somewhat similar to my boyfriends who said to me (to my surprise) after eating this salad "What is in this salad? It is so good! You need to make it again!"
Enjoy!
Step by Step Video
RECIPE
Crunchy Celery Salad
A healthy winter salad with a delicious combination of flavors
INGREDIENTS
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1 sweet green apple
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about 1/3 of an iceberg salad
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3 celery stems with leafs or 4-5 without leafs
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½ cucumber
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1 carrot
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handful of pomegranate
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1tbsp lemon juice
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2tbsp olive oil
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about 1 tsp salt
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some black pepper
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some pepper and chili mix (optional)
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1tsp runny honey
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about 1tbsp flax seed (optional)
DIRECTIONS
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Start by de-seeding the apples and cubing them. If you are not using organic apples then you also want to peel them.
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Add the apple cubes into a large salad bowl and squeeze over some lemon juice just so that you can cover the apples with the lemon juice. This will ensure that the apples won´t get brown in the salad.
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Then slice the iceberg salad finely, cut the celery and cube the cucumbers.
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Peel the carrot and grate it on a grater.
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Add the salad, celery, cucumber and grated carrot to the salad bowl. Then add a handful of pomegranate.
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To make the dressing mix one tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice, two tablespoons of olive oil, one teaspoon of salt (you can add less if you want), pepper and a teaspoon of honey.
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Pour the dressing over the salad and mix well.
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If you want you can also add a tablespoon of flax seed to the salad.
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Serve fresh.
