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Stewed Celery a LA Creme

A dish of boiled celery served with a cream and white sauce mixture, seasoned with mace, nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Stewed Celery a LA Creme

6 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Wash the celery thoroughly.

  2. Trim the celery.

  3. Boil the celery in salted water until tender.

Make the cream sauce and serve

  1. Put the cream and pounded mace into a stewpan.

  2. Shake the mixture over the fire until the cream thickens.

  3. Dish the celery.

  4. Pour the sauce over the celery.

  5. Serve.

Prepare and boil the celery another way

  1. Prepare enough boiling water to cover the celery, with salt and butter in the appropriate proportion.

  2. Wash the celery well.

  3. Cut off the decayed outer leaves.

  4. Trim away the green tops.

  5. Shape the root into a point.

  6. Put the celery into the boiling water.

  7. Boil rapidly until tender.

  8. Remove the celery and drain well.

  9. Place the celery on a dish.

  10. Pour about 1/2 pint of white sauce over the celery.

  11. (Optional) Place the celery on toast and pour melted butter over it, as with asparagus.

Stew the celery

  1. Wash the celery.

  2. Strip off the outer leaves.

  3. Cut the celery into lengths of about 4 inches.

  4. Put the celery into a saucepan with the broth.

  5. Stew until tender (20-25 minutes).

  6. Add the remaining ingredients (cream, butter, flour, mace, nutmeg, pepper, salt).

  7. Simmer together for 4-5 minutes.

  8. Pour into a dish and serve.

  9. (Optional) Garnish with sippets of toasted bread.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

75Calories
1 gProtein
6 gFat
4 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 8 ingredients. The other 3 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Saucenot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 dish and becomes tender when boiled or stewed.
Cream
Adds richness and thickens into a smooth sauce when heated gently.
Mace
Adds a warm, spicy aroma to the cream.

The step that matters

Shaking the cream over the fire until it thickens. Cream thickens as it heats and reduces, but overheating can make it split or curdle. Heat it gently and keep it moving so it thickens smoothly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, cream, sauce, nutmeg, 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.

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