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Stewed Celery

A savory stew of celery, onion, parsley, and ham bone, finished with butter and cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Select the best blanched celery stalks and place them in cold water.

Make the stock

  1. In a pot, stew the minced celery, onion, parsley, and meat bone in enough water to cover for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the mixture, pressing hard to extract the liquid.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the celery into 2-inch pieces and pour the strained stock over them.

  2. Season with pepper and salt if needed, then stew until very tender.

  3. Stir in the butter and a little cornstarch mixed with cold water.

  4. Simmer gently for 3 minutes, then 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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 gives its characteristic flavor to the stock.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished liquid.
Cornstarch
Thickens the stock when heated, giving it a lightly body-rich consistency.

The step that matters

Stewing the celery until very tender. Celery stalks are fibrous and stay stringy if undercooked. Slow, sustained simmering breaks down the cell walls so the pieces become soft and easy to eat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, parsley, ham, pepper, butter):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, parsley, ham, pepper, butter. 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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