A few days ago, James’ nephew arrived from Medicine Hat, and we went to one of our favourite pubs in Courtenay–The White Whale. The cool thing about The White Whale is that they use all local ingredients and also serve only BC beer and wine on a “rotating tap.”

And this awesome pub is also on the banks of the Courtenay River, so you can sit and watch seals and seal lions…and even kayakers paddle by while you dine.

I should mention that the food is a bit pricey for a pub menu, but it IS nice that they support the local economy, so we’re always happy to dine there. In the past, the vegan/vegetarian offerings haven’t been plentiful, but what they do offer has always been very tasty.

On our last visit, however, I was delighted to see a new vegan item appear on the menu: a celeriac steak with miso gravy, wild rice, and broccolini slaw!

It was delicious, but the celeriac was definitely not roasted or smoked. In fact, it seemed more of a vehicle for the delicious miso gravy–indeed, it was more like a boiled parsnip or potato!

And when I looked for a picture online, The White Whale Instagram showed a picture that looked nothing like what I’d eaten:

I decided that I wanted to make a celeriac steak more like the advertised version of The White Whale celeriac steak, so that’s what I set out to do. I then involved Jamie-boy, which brought the entire endeavour up to the next level!!

So, first off, you need to prep the celeriac by peeling it and stabbing it about twenty times. I bought a couple of celeriac roots that were about a half pound each:

Here they are post peeling and stabbing:

Next, rub those suckers with olive oil and sprinkle them with lightly ground coriander seeds and flaked salt and wrap them in tin foil.

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As an aside, my marble mortar and pestle is the first gift Jamie ever gave me!

Bake them at 375 for one hour. I’d say they need about an hour for each half pound.

The celeriac steaks would be absolutely fine to serve right out of the oven, but you can also smoke them at this point, which we did. We removed them from the oven, took off the foil, and smoked them with hickory chips for another 45 minutes:

And while those celeriac steaks were smokin’, I made a succulent mushroom gravy to top them with. I started with this mushroom vegan gravy recipe and made a few variations.

Mushroom Gravy

Ingredients

• 1/4 diced onion
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1 TBS white wine
• 4 ounces sliced mushrooms
• 1 TBS soy sauce
• 2 TBS sprouted spelt flour
• 1/2 TBS nutritional yeast
• 1/4 tsp dried thyme
• 1/4 tsp dried sage
• 1/4 tsp dried rosemary
• 1 1/4 cups vegetable broth
• 1 tsp Better Than Bouillon vegetable base
• half a cap of liquid smoke

Instructions

1. Saute onion and garlic in wine until softened
2. Add mushrooms and soy sauce and cook until reduced
3. In a separate pan, lightly toast spelt flour, nutritional yeast, and dried herbs
4. Add flour mixture to mushrooms and stir well
5. Slowly add vegetable broth and stir well to combine
6. Add BTB and liquid smoke and heat to desired consistency

Once the celeriac steak is finished smoking, remove from heat, slice…

And add gravy…

Serve with mushroom risotto and steamed asparagus!!

This vegan meal is amazingly hearty and delicious!!

And the song of the day is Wings’ “Band on the Run” because James and I were talking about how great Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles project was this afternoon: