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Stewed Celery

A simple stew of celery simmered in a milk, butter, and flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Stewed Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Use only the white and best part of the celery, pull it into pieces, and wash well in salt water.

Cook the celery

  1. Tie the celery in a bundle and place it in boiling salted water.

  2. Boil for about 30 minutes, or until a fork easily goes through.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Take ½ cup of the boiling water and mix it with the milk.

  2. In a saucepan, make a sauce with the milk, butter, and flour, following standard sauce-making directions.

  3. Dish the celery and pour the sauce over it.

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender when boiled until a fork passes through.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce, giving it a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a sauce by swelling as it cooks with the liquid.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens with flour into a creamy coating.

The step that matters

Making the sauce with flour and milk. Flour must be cooked with the fat and liquid so its starch swells and thickens evenly. Adding liquid too fast or skipping stirring can cause lumps.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, flour, 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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