Three celery salad with ham hock and mustard

Serves 4

(Jason Lowe)

This is like a celery family salad. I grow parcel down in Dorset, which is like a celery-flavoured flat parsley leaf, and it seems to survive all through the winter. Ham hock is one of those great all-round meats that sits as happily in a salad as it does in a hefty main course. You will have enough ham hock left over for sandwiches or another salad once you have used it for this.

1 ham hock, soaked in cold water overnight
1 small or half a head of celeriac, peeled
4 sticks of celery, peeled if stringy
A handful or so of parcel or celery leaves
2tbsp olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the dressing

1tbsp cider vinegar
2tsp grain mustard
1tsp Dijon mustard
2tbsp olive oil
2tbsp vegetable or corn oil

Rinse off the ham hock, place in a large saucepan and cover well with cold water. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for about 2 hours, or until the meat is just coming away from the bone. Leave to cool in the liquid.

Cut the celeriac into rough 2cm, odd-sized pieces and blanch in boiling salted water for 2-3 minutes until just tender; remove with a slotted spoon and drain. Cut the celery into cm-thick slices on the angle and blanch for a minute in the celeriac water; drain and leave to cool.

Heat the olive oil in a heavy or non-stick frying pan and fry the pieces of celeriac for 3-4 minutes, seasoning lightly as they are cooking, until lightly coloured; transfer to a plate and leave to cool a little.

For the dressing, whisk all of the ingredients together and season. Remove the ham hock from the bone and break into bite-sized pieces. Arrange the celeriac, celery and the leaves on serving plates with the ham hock, season and spoon over the dressing.