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Celery Au Jus

Celery au jus is celery cooked slowly in a brown roux and stock, served with the gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Ronald · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Celery Au Jus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Cut heads of celery into six-inch pieces, leaving them attached to the root; remove the coarse branches and trim the roots neatly.

  2. Parboil the celery for five minutes.

Make the gravy

  1. Make a brown roux with two tablespoonfuls each of butter and flour, one teaspoonful of salt, one quarter teaspoonful of pepper, and a dash of nutmeg.

  2. When the roux is well browned, add two cupfuls of stock and place the celery in it; cover and cook very slowly for twenty-five minutes.

Serve

  1. Remove the celery and arrange it evenly on a dish.

  2. Strain the gravy and pour it around or over the celery.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

120Calories
0 gProtein
12 gFat
3 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

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

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

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

  2. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery (in the method)
The main vegetable, which becomes tender as it braises slowly in the gravy.
Butter
Fat that forms the roux, carrying flavour and helping the flour brown.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the stock into a gravy once cooked with the butter.
Stock
Liquid that forms the gravy and carries savoury flavour into the celery.

The step that matters

Brown the roux well before adding the stock. Cooking the butter and flour until deep brown develops nutty, roasted flavour and colour in the gravy. Adding the stock to a pale roux gives a flatter, floury taste.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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