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Celery Sauce

A sauce made from boiled celery, veal broth, butter, flour, cream or egg yolks, seasoned with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Celery Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Slice the white part of the celery and peel if necessary.

  2. Boil the celery in salted water for 20 minutes.

  3. Drain the celery and place it in a saucepan with veal broth or gravy.

Make the sauce

  1. Stew until the celery is soft.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix butter with flour and add to the celery mixture.

  3. Stir in thick cream or egg yolks and cook for a few more minutes.

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. Butter + creamtop 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
Provides the main flavour and bulk of the sauce as it softens into the liquid.
Butter and flour
Flour thickens the sauce while butter adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture.
Thick cream or egg yolks
Enriches the sauce and adds body, with egg yolks also helping it thicken as they cook.
Veal broth or gravy
Supplies the savoury liquid that the celery stews in, building the sauce's base flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring in cream or egg yolks. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if the sauce is too hot or boils after they are added. Keep the heat gentle and stir constantly so they thicken the sauce smoothly.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, cream, pepper, nutmeg. 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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