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Celery Gravy

A savory celery-based gravy thickened with flour, flavored with salt and optional almond or peanut butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Celery Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Cook celery in water until tender.

  2. Rub the cooked celery through a colander or fine sieve to make it smooth.

  3. Remove any strings and hard pieces.

Make the gravy

  1. Add 1½ cups of water to the sifted celery.

  2. Season with salt and almond butter or peanut cream to taste.

  3. Thicken the mixture with white flour.

Serve

  1. Serve over toasts or vegetables.

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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Celery + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 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

Cooked celery
Provides the main flavour and body of the gravy once puréed smooth.
White flour
Starch that thickens the liquid into a gravy as it heats.
Almond butter or peanut cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the gravy a smoother, creamier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with white flour. Flour must be fully incorporated and heated with the liquid so its starch swells and thickens evenly; adding it dry or unmixed causes lumps and a raw floury taste.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, flour):

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, flour. 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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