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Celery Broth

A clear broth made from celery, potatoes, cream, and butter, served hot or chilled as a jelly.

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 Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Wash and cut the celery into lengths.

  2. Place celery in a saucepan with cold water and season with salt, nutmeg, pepper, and sugar.

  3. Add sliced potatoes and boil until the celery is tender.

  4. Strain the mixture and return it to the saucepan.

Finish and serve

  1. Add cream and butter, then bring to a boil again.

  2. Serve hot or allow to cool and serve jellied.

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. Celery + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 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 + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Provides the main flavour and, as it simmers, the body of the broth.
Potatoes
Break down during boiling to thicken the broth and give it a smoother texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished broth.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder, richer flavour and smoother finish.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil again after adding cream. Cream can curdle or separate if it is overheated. Bringing it back to a boil should be done gently and briefly, with the broth kept moving, so the cream stays smooth and blended into the liquid.

Swap the celery

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

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

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