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Fricassee of Celeriac

A creamy celery fricassee made with butter, flour, milk, egg yolk, and cream, finished with parsley.

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 ↓

Fricassee of Celeriac

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Wash and peel the celery roots, then cut them into dice.

  2. Cook the diced celery in as little water as possible until tender, adding salt near the end.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate pan, melt the butter and whisk in the flour until smooth but not browned.

  2. Add the milk to the butter and flour mixture and bring to a boil.

  3. Combine the cooked celery and its cooking water with the sauce, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  4. Beat the egg yolk with the cream and stir it into the sauce, then remove from heat.

Serve

  1. Pour into a vegetable dish, sprinkle with minced parsley, 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 + 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Celery roots
Provide the main vegetable body and tender texture of the dish.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries the flavour of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, cohesive white sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it body and creaminess.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce, adding richness and smoothness.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolk and cream. Egg yolk thickens when heated gently but can scramble if the sauce is too hot. Removing the pan from heat before adding the yolk mixture and stirring steadily helps keep the sauce smooth and velvety.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, egg, cream, parsley, pepper. 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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