Do I need to peel celery stalks? Do I need to peel the stalks and roots of celery, and how to do it right? Do I need to peel the stem celery before eating?

Unfortunately, the healthy and flavorful celery is not as commonly used in cooking as other vegetables. For this reason, the housewives, who nevertheless decide to introduce it into the diet, do not even know how to peel celery. The approach you take depends on the type of product you are using and the condition it was in at the time of purchase. The quality of processing affects the final taste and aroma of the product, so you need to treat the cleaning procedure with increased attention.

Types of celery and the rules for its selection

Many mistakenly believe that only one type of celery is sold in stores, it is simply divided into several parts. In fact, you need to understand that there is not one type of celery, but three. And in the process of choosing each of them, you should pay attention to specific points:

  • Sheet. Green leaves of this species are saturated with essential oils, which are very beneficial for the body. A product with an undeveloped root crop is usually used for salads and soups. When choosing a product, you need to pay attention to the brightness and color saturation of the leaves, their freshness and elasticity. They should exude a persistent pleasant aroma.

Tip: You should not buy pre-peeled and even washed celery, regardless of its type. The processed component deteriorates faster and loses its pronounced aroma in just a few hours.

  • Stem (petiole). In this type of vegetable, the root crop is also poorly developed, but the plant has powerful fleshy stems, the diameter of which can reach 4 cm in diameter. Stews and salads are prepared from them, fresh juice is extracted. Quality fresh stems should be literally soaked in juice. When they break, a crunch will be heard. Components covered with scratches, cracks and brown stains should not be purchased.

  • Root. This type of celery is represented by a massive root crop, which can reach 20 cm in diameter. The pulp has a bitter-sweet taste. It is usually dried and added to soups or salads. Eatenable celery will be firm with no dents on the surface when pressed. Do not take a root crop covered with knots. The fresh product is smooth, with small green leaves on top.

In all cases listed, you need to make sure that the vegetable has not sprouted. The presence of an "umbrella" with seeds indicates that there is a risk of acquiring a very bitter and almost inedible product.

How to clean leaf and stem celery?

The leafy appearance of the vegetable does not need pre-cleaning at all. It only needs to be removed from the stem, rinsed under running water, shake off excess moisture and dry a little on a towel or board. After that, the products can be crushed or used as a whole. They are added to first courses, salads, dried for further use.

Celery stalks are subject to more thorough processing. Be sure to cut off at least 3 cm of the lower part of the product, remove the upper shoots. Next, we act depending on the age of the celery. If it is very young and covered with the thinnest skin without signs of wrinkling and brown streaks, it is not necessary to remove it. It is enough to rinse the product under hot running water, dry it and can be used for its intended purpose. If the product is already slightly aged and covered with a thick film, it should be removed. To do this, you can use a knife, but it is much more convenient to use a vegetable peeler.

Features of processing root celery

With this plant, housewives have problems most often. Given the fact that it grows in the ground, you first need to get rid of the traces of the earth on the surface of the formation. This is one of the reasons why it is better to get a smooth root rather than a knotted one. It is much easier to clean it, and it is easier to cut the skin.

The product cleaning process is as follows:

  • Take a large knife and use it to cut off the skin from the top and bottom of the fruit.
  • Cut off as much root as you need to prepare the planned dish. The rest we put in the refrigerator. Bags and cling film can be omitted. They will not extend the shelf life.
  • From the prepared piece with a knife or vegetable peeler, cut off the skin and spoiled places. Even dots should not remain on the pulp, we achieve its purity and uniformity.
  • Particular attention should be paid to the structure of the root crop. It can be divided into spongy and main parts. The first consists of fibers that help cleanse the body, but it is absolutely tasteless. It is used to make soups and infusions during the detox period. The second one saturates dishes with vitamins and aroma, which is why it is most often used in cooking.
  • Now we wash the pulp again under cool water, cut it as needed according to the recipe. In general, the smaller the pieces, the more nutrients will get into the finished dish.
  • If the workpiece will not be used immediately, it must be filled with cold water. Otherwise, after a few minutes, it will begin to darken like potatoes.

Many people know how useful celery is, and how its introduction into the diet will affect the state of the body. Unfortunately, this knowledge very rarely encourages the use of a component in the process of preparing familiar dishes. This is usually due to the lack of skills in the field of pre-treatment of the product. Violation of the rules for choosing and cleaning celery leads to the fact that it gives the finished compositions an unpleasant bitterness or too strong aroma.

Not every even an experienced housewife can say with confidence that she knows how to peel celery correctly and whether it should be done at all. Let's try to deal with this simple, at first glance, question.

Celery is used in cooking as a seasoning: its roots and petioles are eaten, which have a spicy taste and astringent smell. To enhance the flavor, it is added to first courses, freshly crushed for salads, and the petioles go well with both seafood and vegetables. In folk medicine, celery juice is often used.

Greens

Not as often as the roots, the leaves of this plant are also eaten: they do not need to be cleaned, just rinse thoroughly in running water. Greens can be chopped or left whole leaves: depending on how you plan to use it (garnish salad or chop for soup).

Roots

The question of whether celery should be peeled concerns mainly root crops. It is quite large and knotty in celery. If you have never chosen a product in the store, then stop at the smoothest and hardest specimens with small green leaves at the top. Only well-washed and peeled roots are used for food.

After washing, cut off the top and tail of the root (as, for example, when cooking beets). If the root crop is large, cut off the amount of celery necessary for cooking, and put the rest in the refrigerator. The skin of the root crop is removed with a sharp knife or vegetable peeler. After cleaning, white pulp should remain, so those places that the vegetable peeler did not capture should be cut out with the tip of a knife. After rinsing the root crop, you can chop it with a grater or knife (depending on the type of dish for which the plant is intended). Celery is cut in different ways (cubes, plates, straws, etc.) - the main thing is not to forget to fill it with cold water, especially if it remains in the open air before use (celery will quickly darken without water).

Petioles

Peeling stalk celery is not always necessary. Petioles, i.e. shoots of the stem, you can simply rinse with water if they are not too dirty and old in appearance: such specimens should have straight stems and bright green leaves. By the way, celery will taste better if it has not been washed before being sold. At home, you simply rinse the stems with warm running water. If the purchased celery is still a little old, then you can peel the celery stalks from the outside: carefully remove the hard veins and fibers with a sharp knife or vegetable peeler - this way you will make it more suitable for consumption.

Bon appetit and successful culinary experiments!

Celery is a vegetable plant with a spicy taste and a specific aroma that can raise the tone and normalize appetite. Its leaves, stems and root crops are used for food, sometimes juice is squeezed out.

But how to peel celery, depending on the variety and age of the crop, in order to get the maximum benefit for yourself?

Choose a product

Before peeling celery, you need to decide which part of it is needed for consumption. Accordingly, we choose the appropriate type of celery:

Sheet

He has an undeveloped root crop, but lush greens of rich bright color, rich in essential oils. When choosing, you should pay attention to how elastic and fragrant they are. A young, fresh plant cannot have sluggish and yellowed leaves.

petiolate

It has an underdeveloped root and thick stems with a diameter of about 4 cm. It is good to cook salads and stews from them, and, thanks to their high juiciness, to squeeze juice. In appearance, the stems should be smooth, not withered, without a brownish tint. Sluggish, weathered stems indicate the staleness of the product.

Root

A vegetable with a well-developed, rounded root crop up to 20 cm in diameter. It has a bittersweet taste and is used raw and dried in soups or salads. Fresh hard celery root. You need to choose a product with the smoothest possible skin so that it can be easier to clean.

Advice! Pay attention to the smell of celery root - fresh and young has a well-defined aroma. A released umbrella with seeds can indicate the overripeness of a vegetable.

Preparation for use

How to properly clean celery? It all depends on the age, as well as the freshness of the product.

Foliage

Naturally, the foliage does not need to be cleaned. It is enough to separate it from the stem and rinse with water. You can chop the herbs or dry them, and then use them as spices.

stems

Petioles of young celery are not yet covered with coarsened fibers, their skin is thin, almost imperceptible. It is sufficient to simply rinse the stems in hot water before cooking. Petiole celery has a tough film, so it is best to peel the stems using a knife or vegetable peeler. It is also necessary to remove the upper shoots, if any, and the lower part of the stems.

Cleaning the root crop is the most difficult due to the presence of nodules on the surface and the hardness of the product. However, it is necessary to clean the root, since only a well-washed culture can be eaten, and always without a rough peel. If the root is rough, then more pulp will be lost during cleaning. So how do you clean and cook it?

    1. Rinse off the dirt thoroughly, you can use a brush.
    2. Cut off the top and bottom of the fruit with a knife.
    3. Cut the root into four parts, while the pieces are unnecessary in the refrigerator.
  • With a vegetable peeler, cut off a thin layer of the skin, removing spoiled areas and black spots. The peeled pieces should be white.
  • Remove the spongy pulp - it has no taste. You can leave this part if celery is prepared for weight loss: it, in fact, is coarse dietary fiber.
  • Rinse after cleaning and cut according to purpose.
  • After cleaning the celery root, it is better to fill it with cold water so that the product does not darken.

Some housewives confidently say: “I don’t peel the celery root, and a more healthy dish turns out.” In fact, the skin of the root vegetable contains a higher amount of nitrates, and therefore it needs to be peeled like a potato.

Celery roots and greens are rich in fiber and are an effective recipe for health in the fight for a slim figure. This vegetable plant provides a surge of intellectual and physical strength, normalizes digestion, which makes the product very popular.

Due to its specific aroma and spicy taste, celery is not very popular among our compatriots, so it is not surprising that many do not even know how to peel celery, and does it make sense to do this at all, or is it possible to eat unpeeled petioles and root crops?

1 How to properly prepare celery roots for eating

If, having familiarized yourself with the beneficial properties of celery root, you decide to include it in your diet, it will not be superfluous to immediately learn how to properly clean celery so as not to spoil the first impressions of this amazing vegetable plant. Indeed, with the right approach, celery can become your indispensable assistant in the kitchen: soups with the addition of roots become richer and more aromatic, grated fresh root crops give salads a tart taste, petioles go well in salads with seafood and make vegetable stew tastier. In addition, wonderful freshly squeezed juice is obtained from celery, the healing properties of which are extremely high!

With celery greens, questions usually do not arise - it is enough to rinse it under the tap and finely chop it to add to soups, main dishes, sauces, salads, or decorate cooked dishes with openwork leaves. But how to clean the root and petiole celery, we will take a closer look.

Video about the proper cleaning of celery

So, for the first time you are holding a large, scary-looking, knotty celery root crop in your hands and do not know which side to approach it from? In fact, there are no special tricks on how to peel celery. But to make it easier for yourself, try to choose root crops in the store that are firm, less knotty, with a smooth skin. In terms of weight, they can seem quite heavy for their size. The greens remaining at the top should be green, and not yellowed and withered. Such root crops will be much easier to clean, and there will be less waste when cleaning.

photography of celery

It should be noted right away that it is necessary to clean the root crops; only completely peeled, well-washed roots are added to the dishes.

How to peel celery roots:

  • first of all, the root crop should be thoroughly washed, and then cut off the top of the root and its lower part with a knife;
  • celery roots are quite large - halves or quarters of one root may be enough for you to cook one dish, so cut the root for convenience into the required number of parts and put those that you don’t need yet in the refrigerator;
  • from those parts that you are immediately going to use for food, carefully remove the skin with a sharp thin knife or a vegetable peeler;
  • scrape out all the notches and cut out doubtful places on the white pulp;
  • spongy parts have no taste, so they can also be cut immediately;
  • now it remains to rinse the peeled parts of the root crop and use it at your discretion: grate, cut into small cubes, large pieces, straws, plates, etc .;
  • Pour cold water over the sliced ​​​​pieces so that they do not darken.

photo of celery

If you plan to eat celery root for the purpose of losing weight, you should not cut out the spongy parts - they are coarse dietary fibers, the processing of which the body spends a lot of energy.

Rough, knotty root crops will be easier to clean by cutting them into small pieces.

2 Petiole celery - is it worth it to peel, and how best to do it

Contradictory opinions can be heard about celery stalks: some argue that the stalks must be cleaned before eating, others are limited only to washing the stalks in running water, without bothering to clean the stalks. So after all, do you need to peel celery?

Video about peeling celery stalks

It all depends on what petioles you come across in the store. For example, in young stems growing inside the bundle, the fibers are not felt at all, but the old petioles may turn out to be tough and fibrous - they will not be so tasty to eat without preliminary cleaning. Therefore, you should carefully choose petiole celery in the store: the plants should have fresh, bright green leaves and straight stems, but if some leaves and petioles are missing, this may mean that the celery is stale. It is best to buy unwashed celery if possible, because it tastes better than stalks washed before selling.

Photo of celery

Before peeling the celery stalks, rinse them under the tap with warm water. After that, you should carefully remove the fibers and hard veins from the surface of the petioles with a sharply sharpened knife or vegetable peeler.

There are three types of celery used in cooking: leaf, petiole and root. The first is added to food as greens rich in vitamins. The other two raise doubts among many housewives: whether celery should be peeled or not, and how to eat it correctly. This culture is not popular among Russians due to its specific taste and smell, so it is not surprising that not everyone knows what to do with it.

Stem - to clean or not

Celery stalks are mainly used in salads and cold appetizers without prior heat treatment.. Whether it is necessary to peel the celery in the stalks before eating or is it better to leave it as is - depends on the thickness of the peel.

Young and juicy petioles do not require peeling. Yes, and sometimes it is not easy to do this: the pliable pulp exfoliates under the edge of the knife. It is best to thoroughly rinse such celery under running water, dry it, cut it and then use it in salads or other dishes.

Sometimes hard stems come across with a distinctly prominent "skin". This is an overgrown celery, which differs from the young one in taste, but after pre-treatment it is suitable for food. Tips on how to peel celery, the stalk of which is not the first freshness, relate primarily to affordable kitchen utensils. If the farm has a vegetable peeler, you can use it, if not, a sharp knife will do. The main thing is to free the stem from the rough skin, so that in the future it can be used for its intended purpose.

How to clean the root

The root crop of a fragrant vegetable is undeservedly bypassed by the attention of consumers. And in vain, because it is healthy and tasty when cooked correctly. To make the soup richer and more fragrant, to give a vegetable salad a spicy touch or to become a full-fledged side dish - the unsightly-looking celery root is capable of all this.

How to peel a rough peel correctly:

It should be remembered that a peeled vegetable does not keep for a long time even in the refrigerator. 3-4 days is the period of time during which it will be necessary to find an application for the root crop. It can then be rotted or attacked by fungus, leaving it to be thrown away.

What to cook from a spicy product

The fragrant vegetable is used in European and Asian cuisines, but it is rarely seen on the tables of Russians. And all because many compatriots cautiously look towards an outlandish product and do not even try to cook something with it. Some believe that it is only suitable for losing weight ladies as a low-calorie snack. In fact, the possibilities of this culture are wider than commonly thought.

So, how to eat celery correctly so that it not only benefits and takes away extra pounds, but is also very tasty.

Vegetable can be added to almost any salads (fruit, vegetable, meat), soups, main dishes. The young stems are used as a filling for pies and as a main ingredient in vegetable sauces. Spicy oriental snacks are prepared from petiole, for example, Korean celery. But the most popular are celery smoothies - thick drinks made from the pulp of vegetables and fruits, designed to saturate the body with useful substances.

How to use root

Traditionally, the root crop is used as a flavoring additive in soups and main dishes.. But not everyone knows that celery root can become a full-fledged side dish that replaces boring potatoes. Mashed potatoes are prepared from the root crop or baked in the oven under a cheese crust. It can be simply fried like a regular potato. A piquant vegetable gives an unusual touch to salads and cold appetizers. It is pickled and dried for the winter, and also frozen in order to preserve its beneficial properties as much as possible.

Celery was mentioned in ancient Greek mythology. According to ancient legends, the goddess Aphrodite herself enriched her diet with it to maintain youth and beauty. Indeed, celery surpasses many other vegetables in its beneficial properties. Its composition is rich in vitamins C, E, PP, group B, macro- and microelements, organic acids, essential oils. How does a spicy vegetable affect the body?

But despite all the benefits of this vegetable, it should be used with caution by people with urolithiasis, diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, thrombophlebitis and varicose veins.

For everyone else, celery is a great way to improve health and maintain a figure, as well as enrich the diet with new dishes with an unusual taste.

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