Recipes: Chinese Leaf
Celery is a bit like gym membershipWe buy it – often in January – as we bask in the righteous glow of our own good intentions. We use it once (in celery's case, we try to make the leftover Christmas cheese board look virtuous with a few green sticks in a jug of water), then we forget about it for another year. The key difference is that whereas gym membership really is a waste of time and money, celery is actually a very useful, even inspiring, vegetable. It has a peppery crunch and aromatic savouriness that really is too good to ignore, particularly at this time of year when crunch is a rare commodity indeed. Celery's special qualities come to the fore when it is teamed up with the right companions – and these can often come as quite a surprise.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Guardian