Celery Salad with Apple and Cilantro

Homemade celery salad can be made with or without meat or chicken, as you like. Juicy celery stalks should make up almost half of the ingredients. They give the salad juiciness and a delicate, slightly spicy flavor. I recommend juicy sweet-and-sour apples and fresh cilantro. You need very little mayonnaise, less than a full spoonful.

You can simply mix the salad and serve it in bowls, like potato salad. If you prefer individual servings, toast some sandwich bread, two slices per serving. Cut one slice to the size of the cooking ring you will use to shape the appetizer. Cut the other in half diagonally. Toast on a dry hot frying pan until pleasantly golden, then let the bread cool.

Peel the apple and remove the seeds. Grate the flesh on a coarse grater into long matchsticks. Apple darkens very quickly in the air, so right after grating, sprinkle it with 1 tsp of fresh lemon juice and stir. If the apple is noticeably sweet, the lemon juice won’t hurt it, and the celery salad will taste even better.

Peel the sweet onion and cut it into thin matchsticks. It’s best to remove the inner part of the bulb. If you use boiled pork or grilled chicken fillet, cool it and cut it into matchsticks. Carefully peel the outer film off the celery stalks with a knife, since it is fibrous and pulls off in threads. Then cut the stalks into thin matchsticks on the diagonal. Pick all the leaves off the cilantro sprigs and chop them coarsely with a knife or tear them with your fingers (keep a couple of sprigs for serving).

Set aside 1 tbsp of chopped celery for serving. Put the chopped onion and celery in a bowl, add the herbs and the grated apple (drain off any juice it releases). Add the sliced meat, salt lightly and season generously with freshly ground pepper. Gently toss the celery salad. Add a little prepared mayonnaise and mix. By the way, the salad turns out fairly “dry” despite the juicy ingredients.

If you like, simply put the salad into bowls and serve. Or place on a flat plate the cooking ring you used to shape the sandwich bread before toasting. Put the round slice at the very bottom of the ring. Serving appetizers on a crouton is often used, especially for specialties and signature dishes. Pile the salad on top of the toast, pressing it down lightly. The bottom crouton has another job: it soaks up excess liquid from the salad, as in the Italian panzanella salad.

Before serving, sprinkle the top of the salad with finely grated Parmesan and add the remaining chopped celery. Add more pepper if you like. Put a little fresh cilantro and two pieces of toasted bread on the plate. The salad can go straight to the table, and it needs no soaking or chilling.