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Celeey Sauce

A creamy sauce made from celery, butter, flour, milk, and seasonings.

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 ↓

Celeey Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Cook the celery in boiling salted water until soft, then drain.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour, salt, and pepper, cooking for 1-2 minutes.

  3. Gradually add the scalded milk while stirring constantly until the sauce thickens.

Finish

  1. Combine the cooked celery with the white sauce 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 + 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 + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour while it forms the base of the roux.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the sauce by swelling with the hot milk once cooked in the butter.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the sauce, which thickens as the starch gelatinises with heat.
Celery
Provides the main vegetable flavour and body once cooked soft and folded into the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the milk gradually. Adding scalded milk slowly while stirring constantly keeps the flour dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, milk, chicken. 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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