Crispy chicken with celeriac purée and creamy mushroom sauce
A restaurant worthy supper made at home
My goodness this is so good. The kind of dish where a photo can’t really do it justice but I know you will love this. If I was served this in a restaurant, I would be waxing lyrical about the restaurant and yet it’s such a simple dish to make at home. I really truly believe you can make this in 30 minutes, 40 if you want to take your time.
I don’t think celeriac gets nearly as much attention as it deserves. It’s such a delicious ingredient to cook with and celeriac purée is one of my favourite ways to have it. It’s lighter than mashed potato, it’s a little more interesting and it works so so well with a dish like this.
Celeriac is a root vegetable, related to celery but quite quite different. It has a subtle, earthy flavour and I think you will like it even if you don’t like celery as they don’t taste similar. Perhaps raw there is more of a similarity. If you haven’t tried making your own celeriac I can highly recommend it, and this is my recipe. It’s slightly sweet and nutty and becomes even sweeter when cooked. When baked or sautéed, it becomes richer and sweeter, developing a nutty, caramelized flavour. Whereas boiled celeriac becomes tender and milder in flavour, most similar to potatoes but with an earthy nutty undertone. There is a kind of subdued sweetness and a lovely creamy texture which makes a gorgeous purée or soup.
Whilst you couldn’t dream of making mashed potato in a food processor (it will end in a gluey disaster) - the celeriac is much more forgiving and less precious. You can blend it or blitz it and it reheats really well without any drama so is a great thing to make if you have friends coming over. Just pop it in a baking dish, and then gently reheat it in the oven when you’re ready to eat. I like simmering the celeriac in milk to make it really tender and creamy before blending it into a purée.
For the mushroom sauce you can use whatever mushrooms you like, chanterelles are amazing at this time of year so if you can find them, lucky you! But any mushrooms will do and I’ve got quite strong opinions about how to cook the most delicious mushrooms which I will tell you about below. We are using both stock and creme fraiche for the sauce and you’re welcome to lean more into one than the other. The sauce is delicious when more stock heavy, like a deep mushroom gravy but I can almost never resist upping the creme fraiche. The creamy sauce goes so well with the nutty celeriac and crispy chicken.
If you want to cook this as efficiently as possible, this is what I suggest. Get the chicken out of the fridge when you get home from work / before you bathe the kids etc. Once you’re ready to start cooking, get the celeriac going. Once that’s doing its thing, you can move onto the chicken. While the chicken is cooking, prep your mushrooms. At this point the celeriac is probably ready for blitzing, you can do this while the chicken rests. Make your sauce. Ta dah!
Always remember meat doesn’t have to be served HOT. It’s important it has time to rest and as long as you serve it with other things that are hot (celeriac, and the sauce) then the meat not being hot hot is not a problem at all. I’ve never had any complaints!
Serves 2