Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Celery-root or Celeriac
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the celeriac thoroughly.
Cut the leaves off about 1 inch from the root. If very large, divide it into 4 pieces.
Blanch
Blanch in salted boiling water for about 10 minutes.
Drain and dry the celeriac.
Finish in the sauce
Add the celeriac to a rich cream sauce.
Set it over boiling water and stew gently until tender, about 30 minutes.
Alternatively, slice the celeriac after scalding and finish as above, which will require less cooking time.
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.
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Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,787 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Celeriac
- Forms the main body of the dish and turns tender and soft during slow stewing.
- Rich cream sauce
- Adds moisture, richness and fat, coating the celeriac and carrying its flavour.
The step that matters
Stew gently until tender. Cream sauces can separate or curdle when boiled hard. Holding the pan over boiling water and cooking gently keeps the sauce smooth while the celeriac softens.
“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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