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Stewed Celery

A simple stew of celery cooked with cream, butter, and flour, seasoned with pepper, salt, and optional nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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. Clean the celery and remove all outer leaves.

  2. Cut the celery into small pieces and stew until tender.

Finish

  1. Add cream, butter, and flour, stirring to combine.

  2. Season with pepper, salt, and nutmeg if desired.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Celery + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,331 recipes

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 and, once stewed, becomes soft and tender.
Rich cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the stew a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel to the stew.
Flour
Thickens the cream and butter so the liquid becomes a smooth, cohesive sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the flour with the cream and butter. Flour must be stirred in evenly so it dissolves without lumps. Stirring it into a hot liquid while stirring constantly helps it thicken smoothly rather than clumping.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, cream, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, cream, butter, 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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