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Celery Fried

Fried celery pieces coated in a batter of eggs, milk, and flour or crumbs, then fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Celery Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Cut the celery into 3-4 inch pieces.

  2. Boil the celery in salted water until tender.

  3. Drain the boiled celery.

Batter and fry

  1. In a bowl, mix 2 eggs with 1 cup of whole milk.

  2. Add enough flour or fine bread or cracker crumbs to create a batter.

  3. Roll the celery pieces in the batter.

  4. Fry the battered celery in hot lard until light brown.

  5. Serve very 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Celery + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 stalks
Provide the main vegetable body that becomes tender when boiled and crisp when fried.
Eggs
Bind with the milk and flour to form a batter that coats the celery.
Whole milk
Thins the egg mixture so it spreads into a smooth coating.
Flour or bread or cracker crumbs
Thickens the egg-milk mixture into a batter and gives the fried coating structure.
Lard
Conducts heat to brown the batter and adds rich flavor to the coating.

The step that matters

Frying the battered celery in hot lard. Lard must be hot enough to set the batter quickly; if it is too cool, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of light brown and crisp.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour. 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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