Celery Toasts

By Gabrielle Hamilton

Celery Toasts
Davide Luciano for The New York Times. Food stylist: Michelle Gatton. Prop stylist: Alex Brannian.
Total Time
12 minutes
Rating
4(779)
Comments
Read comments

This was the first recipe that the chef and writer Gabrielle Hamilton brought to The Times as an Eat columnist for the Sunday magazine in 2016, a snack-tray-sandwich version of a celery-and-fennel salad served at her restaurant, Prune, in the East Village. It calls for thick, white toasted Pullman bread spread wall to wall with unsalted butter, with slices of blue cheese neatly laid on top, below a mound of shaved celery and thinly sliced scallions dressed in garlic, olive oil, lemon juice and salt, and the whole shebang dusted in ground black pepper before being cut in halves or quarters. "The ingredients come from the grocery store," she wrote in her column. "These toasts are not expensive or intimidating, but they are outstanding."

Featured in: A Snack Tray to Gather the Family Around

  • or to save this recipe.

  • Subscriber benefit: give recipes to anyone
    As a subscriber, you have 10 gift recipes to give each month. Anyone can view them - even nonsubscribers. Learn more.
    Subscribe

  • Print Options

Advertisement

Ingredients

Yield:2 servings
  • 2slices country white Pullman bread, ½-inch thick
  • Sweet butter
  • 4ounces Cambozola triple-cream blue cheese, sliced, divided evenly between two toasts
  • 1cup shaved celery, from the inner head, toughest outer stalks removed, thinly sliced on the bias
  • 2scallions, thinly sliced on bias all the way up from the white through the green
  • 1large clove garlic
  • Extra-virgin olive oil
  • Lemon juice
  • Kosher salt
  • Several grinds black pepper
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (2 servings)

448 calories; 29 grams fat; 15 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 10 grams monounsaturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 32 grams carbohydrates; 7 grams dietary fiber; 10 grams sugars; 19 grams protein; 1059 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

Powered by
Cooking Newsletter illustration

Opt out or contact us anytime. See our Privacy Policy.

Opt out or contact us anytime. See our Privacy Policy.

Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Toast the bread to golden. Butter generously, “wall to wall.” Lay cheese slices on top of buttered toast, neatly, evenly.

  2. Step 2

    In a small bowl, stir together the celery and the scallions. Microplane the garlic into the celery mixture.

  3. Step 3

    Dress with olive oil, lemon juice and salt, and stir very well, until completely dressed, almost wet with dressing.

  4. Step 4

    Mound the shaved celery salad evenly on top of the blue-cheese toasts, and grind black pepper over them very generously. Cut each in half or quarters.

Ratings

4 out of 5
779 user ratings
Your rating

or to rate this recipe.

Have you cooked this?

or to mark this recipe as cooked.

Private Notes

Leave a Private Comment on this recipe and see it here.

Comments

djq

What is Pullman bread? Is it available in California? What would be a substitute? Looking forward to trying this.

Helen

We tried this combination of butter and a bleu cheese on toasted bread or a cracker in cooking school. You'd think the cheese would be enough, but it was a delicious discovery how the butter truly enhanced the flavor the of the bleu cheese.

I like the addition of a fresh "crunch" of celery and onion.

mjan

Pullman bread is made in a Pullman loaf pan with a square cross-section (say 5” x 5”) and a lid that slides over the pan to close it after the dough is loaded. The lid keeps the bread from rising up out of the pan. After baking, the lid is removed, the square loaf taken out and then sliced into neat squares of a bread with a tight crumb.

JW

I have made this two times now in the last couple of months. It’s very adaptable. Today I used thin and veey lightly toasted slices of a good whole wheat sourdough bread. Applied the butter as directed, and then I used boursin instead of blue cheese. And then placed the salad on top. This recipe is definitely greater than the sum of its parts!

Jill

My family’s favorite. I use both celery and fennel, sliced very thin with a mandoline. Use crumbled blue cheese mixed in equal parts with cream cheese as a spread. Simple and delicious.

Scott Fletcher

For those in Germany, a Pullman loaf (helpfully explained by reader mjan in the reader comments) is what is sold here as Toastbrot. Though I dare say if you can find a more interesting white bread than supermarket Toastbrot, go for it.

Private comments are only visible to you.

Recipe Tags

Advertisement

or to save this recipe.