Stracciatella with Celery and Herb Salad and Celery-Leaf Pesto
One of the principles of Italian cooking—and maybe this is true of all of European kitchens—is not to be wasteful. Italian cooks find a use for every edible component of each animal or vegetable they cook. In the Italian spirit, I use all parts of the celery in this dish. I slice the celery ribs for the salad, and I use the leaves, so often discarded, both in a salad the cheese is served on and to make a celery-leaf pesto that gets spooned onto the cheese. The result is a bright, flavorful, and textural salad that is equally pretty and unexpected. We peel celery using a vegetable peeler anytime we are serving it raw; it takes only a few seconds and the celery is so much more tender with the fibrous strings removed. The pesto recipe makes 3/4 cup, which is more than you will need for this recipe, but it’s difficult to make pesto in a smaller quantity. Spoon the leftovers over grilled chicken, fish, or vegetables; use in place of basil pesto to make a tomato and mozzarella salad; or simply double the salad and the stracciatella in this recipe to make eight salads. Since stracciatella is hard to find, feel free to substitute burrata in this dish. I normally like to use only the pale green leaves from the celery hearts, but since this dish requires so many celery leaves, I call for you to use the darker green leaves for the pesto, reserving the light green leaves for the salad. If you were inclined to buy even more celery, then use the light green leaves for both parts of this recipe—and use the excess celery ribs as inspiration to make Basic Chicken Stock (page 27), Soffritto (page 28), Lentils Castellucciano (page 264), or any of our other recipes that begin with sautéed diced celery.
Recipe information
Yield
serves 4
Ingredients
For the Celery-Leaf Pesto
For the Salad
Preparation
Step 1
Combine the pine nuts, garlic, salt, and half of the olive oil in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade or the jar of a blender. Add the parsley and pulse until it is finely chopped. Turn off the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Add the celery leaves, the Parmigiano-Reggiano, and the remaining olive oil and purée, stopping as soon as the ingredients form a homogenous paste, and adding more olive oil if necessary to obtain a loose, spoonable pesto. (You want to stop the machine as soon as you achieve the desired consistency, as the blade will heat the garlic and give it a bitter flavor. Also, overprocessing the pesto will incorporate too much air, making the pesto fluffy and too smooth. I like to see some flecks of herbs in my pesto.) Turn the pesto out into a bowl and stir in the lemon juice. Taste for seasoning and add more salt or lemon juice if desired. Use the pesto or transfer it to an airtight container and refrigerate for up to two days—any longer and it will lose its pretty green color and vibrant flavor. Bring the pesto to room temperature, stir to recombine the ingredients, and taste again for seasoning before serving.
Step 2
To prepare the salad, combine the celery, scallions, celery leaves, chervil, tarragon, parsley, basil, and chives in a large bowl. Season with salt and toss to combine. Drizzle the salad with the vinaigrette and toss gently to coat it with the dressing. Taste for seasoning and add more vinaigrette or salt, if desired.
Step 3
Pile the salad in the center of four salad plates or four large soup plates, dividing it evenly. Drizzle about 1 teaspoon of vinaigrette around each salad. If you are using burrata, cut it into four equal segments. Nestle one segment of burrata or pile the stracciatella, dividing it evenly, in the center of each salad. Use the back of a spoon to create a shallow crater in the center of each serving of burrata or stracciatella, spoon 1 tablespoon of the pesto into each crater, and serve.
Suggested Wine pairing
Step 4
Sauvignon (Friuli)
