Skip to main content
Main

Fried Celery

Fried celery is celery stalks coated in egg and breadcrumbs, then fried until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fried Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Remove the green leaves from the celery and cut the stalks into 5‑inch pieces.

  2. Clean the celery thoroughly, cover with boiling water, and let it sit for 15 minutes.

  3. Drain the celery and dry it on a towel.

Bread and fry

  1. Beat the egg with warm water until well mixed.

  2. In a bowl, combine the bread crumbs, salt, and pepper.

  3. Dip the celery first in the egg mixture, then in the bread crumbs.

  4. Fry the celery in hot oil until crisp.

  5. Drain and serve hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Celery + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,110 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Celery
Is the main vegetable; its crisp stalks become tender inside while the coating fries golden.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the celery so the coating adheres during frying.
Dry bread crumbs
Form the crunchy outer coating that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Dry the celery before breading. Surface moisture left after boiling and draining keeps the egg and crumbs from adhering evenly and can cause the coating to steam and fall off in hot oil.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes