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Stewed Celery

Stewed celery served with a creamy mustard and vinegar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Stewed Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Cut the celery into 1-inch pieces.

  2. Stew the celery in slightly salted water until tender.

  3. Drain the celery and set it aside.

Make the sauce

  1. In a double boiler, combine the egg yolks, salt, dry mustard, sugar, butter, vinegar, and milk.

  2. Boil the mixture until creamy.

Serve

  1. Pour the hot sauce over the hot celery before serving.

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 + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Celery + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,627 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Forms the tender vegetable base that the sauce coats.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce into a creamy custard as they cook with the milk.
Milk
Provides the liquid base of the sauce and adds richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor of the sauce.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the sauce a smooth, rich texture.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until creamy. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if the sauce gets too hot or cooks too fast, the proteins can curdle and turn grainy. Cooking gently over a double boiler and stirring keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, mustard, sugar, butter, vinegar, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mustard, sugar, butter, vinegar, milk. 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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