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Celery Sauce

A tomato-based sauce with celery, onions, sugar, spices, and vinegar, simmered for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Celery Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine tomatoes, onions, celery, brown sugar, salt, white pepper, allspice, cloves, cayenne pepper, and vinegar in a large pot.

  2. Boil slowly for 2 hours.

  3. Cool the mixture and then rub it through a sieve.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and acidity that form the base of the sauce.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the sauce.
Onions
Add savoury depth and body as they soften during the long simmer.
Celery
Adds a vegetal, savoury aroma and flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 2 hours. A gentle, long simmer lets the vegetables soften and their flavours blend. A hard boil can scorch the sugar and reduce the pot unevenly, so keep the heat low and stir to prevent sticking.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, onion, celery, sugar, allspice, clove, pepper):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, celery, sugar, allspice, clove, 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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