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Celery Puree, for Garniture

A smooth celery purée made with butter, broth, and cream, seasoned with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Celery Puree, for Garniture

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Clean and trim the celery, cutting the white parts into small pieces.

  2. Parboil the celery pieces for 10 minutes, then immerse in cold water and drain.

Cook the celery

  1. In a saucepan, combine the celery with butter, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and sugar.

  2. Add enough white broth to cover the celery, cover the saucepan, and cook over medium heat.

  3. Once the moisture is reduced and the celery is cooked, stir in the Allemande or cream sauce.

Finish and serve

  1. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve back into the saucepan.

  2. Add the cream and stir until the desired consistency is reached.

  3. Before serving, add a small piece of butter.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Celery + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,331 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Forms the main body of the puree and provides its vegetable flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel and flavor.
Allemande or cream sauce
Adds richness and body, helping the puree thicken and hold together.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, loosening the puree to the desired consistency.

The step that matters

Rubbing the mixture through a fine sieve. Cooked celery fibers resist breaking down, so pressing the mixture through a fine sieve removes stringy bits and gives the smooth texture a puree needs. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the result coarse.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, nutmeg, sugar, cream):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, nutmeg, sugar, cream. 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.

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