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Stewed Celery

A creamy celery dish simmered with milk, butter, flour, and spices.

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 ↓

Stewed Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the celery

  1. Stew the celery in a little salted hot water until quite tender.

  2. Drain off the water and add the cold milk.

Make the sauce

  1. Once the milk boils, stir in the butter and flour mixture, pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  2. Add a few spoonfuls of hot milk to the beaten egg to prevent curdling.

  3. Combine the egg mixture with the celery and sauce over heat.

  4. Boil once 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

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

  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 becomes tender through slow stewing in salted water.
Egg
Thickens the sauce gently and adds richness when heated with the milk.
Milk
Forms the creamy sauce base that carries the celery.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce with the butter.
Butter
Adds fat and a rounded flavor to the sauce and helps it stay smooth.

The step that matters

Adding the hot milk to the beaten egg. Egg proteins can scramble or curdle when they meet hot liquid too quickly. Warming the egg gradually with a few spoonfuls of hot milk first lets it blend smoothly before it joins the sauce.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, butter, flour, 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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