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Stewed Celery

Stewed celery in a cream and egg yolk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,863 recipes. Both carry gamma-decalactone, which smells peach, creamy. The science ↓

Stewed Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Cut the tender parts of celery into desired lengths.

  2. Scald in boiling water for 10 minutes, then drain in a colander.

Cook the celery

  1. Place the celery in a saucepan and pour boiling water over it to barely cover.

  2. Stew until tender.

  3. Drain the celery again.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Add ½ cup cream.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Remove the celery from the sauce.

  4. Beat the yolks of 2 eggs and add to the sauce.

  5. Boil until it thickens.

  6. Pour the sauce over the celery and serve.

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 + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,863 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  2. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Celery + eggtop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Cream
Adds richness and body, giving the sauce a smooth, creamy texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they heat, giving it a smooth, custard-like body.

The step that matters

Boil until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken the sauce as they heat, but overheating can curdle them. Heat gently and stop once the sauce coats a spoon.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. White pepperfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg. 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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