Tender Steamed Celery Leaves with Corn Flour

QUCIK DISH / VEGAN / DAIRY-FREE / GLUTEN-FREE
February 20, 2021

What do you do with those lush green leaves, the most nutritious and aromatic part of a celery plant? Here is a Chinese home-style recipe of tender steamed celery leaves; it makes a wonderful small warm meal and can be prepared from scratch in 5 minutes.

I always save the celery leaves for this dish. With a super quick steam, even those dark, tough and bitter leaves at the tip of the celery will become tender with a beautiful fragrance. The addition of flour or couscous not only helps to preserve the texture of the leaves, it also turns this dish into a small meal. If you’re not on a gluten-free diet, you can use plain flour or couscous. I haven’t tried any other flours, but my suspension is that any fine flour will probably work.

I cooked the dish in the photo above for a last-minute lunch on a very busy day. We ate it right off the bamboo steamer after I took a few quick shots – ha, no dishes to do!

TENDER STEAMED CELERY LEAVES WITH CORNFLOUR

QUCIK DISH / VEGAN / DAIRY-FREE / GLUTEN-FREE

MAKE 2 servings PREPARATION 5 minutes

Ingredients

• Leaves of 1 celery (150g to 200g)
• 3 to 4 tablespoon corn flour
• oils and salt for seasoning

Method

1. Boil 1 litre of water for steaming. Wash the celery leaves and shake off excessive water. Mix the flour or couscous with the leaves in a large bowl.
2. Steam the celery leaves over boiling water for 3 minutes, immediately remove from heat. Add extra virgin olive oil, sesame oil or chilli oil and salt to taste.

Recipe Notes

• Corn flour can be replaced by plain flour or couscous (whole meal or plain) if you are not on a gluten-free diet.