Celeriac and Lancashire cheese pithivier, by Mark Hix

Ingredients
(Serves 6-8)
Two knobs of butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 x 400-500g celeriac, peeled
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
250-300g ready-made all-butter puff pastry
Plain flour, for dusting
200g Lancashire cheese, grated
1 egg, beaten

Method Melt the butter in a pan, add the onion and gently cook for 2-3 minutes without colouring. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.

Cut the celeriac in half and slice it as thinly as possible with a very sharp knife or mandolin. Blanch the slices in boiling salted water for 2-3 minutes.

Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface until it is 1cm thick and cut out two discs, one about 25cm across and the other about 30cm. Lay the smaller one on a tray and prick holes in it with a fork. Arrange a layer of the celeriac slices over the pastry, leaving a 2cm margin around the edge.

Scatter over some onion, a little cheese, and season, then add another layer of celeriac slices. Continue layering up the ingredients in this fashion until you have used them all up.

Brush the edges of the pastry with egg and lay the larger pastry disc on top, pressing the edges together with your fingers. You can decorate the pithivier by making lines with the back of a small knife from the centre of the pastry if you wish. Brush with egg and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Bake the pithivier for about 30-40 minutes until golden. Serve.

Taken from Mark Hix on Baking

RECOMMENDED WINE
This is a rich and savoury dish with earthy and vegetal notes from the celeriac. The wine must have a good and intense structure to match the richness of this dish, some herbal notes that recall the vegetal flavours of the celeriac, but also minerality and acidity to be able to refresh the palate on the finish. I would recommend a fermented Sauvignon Blanc, Fumé Blanc 900 Sevilen Anatolia, from a very unusual wine country, Turkey. This wine has a little smokiness, dried herbs and hay aromas with citrus and little grassy flavours; it is very clean and dry, with a long finish.
Roberto Della Pietra, co-owner & sommelier, Gauthier Soho, London