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Celery Sauce for Boiled Fowl

A sauce made from celery, fowl broth, cream, butter, flour, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

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 ↓

Celery Sauce for Boiled Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Stew the celery pieces in the broth until tender but not broken.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the butter and flour together.

  3. Add the cream, nutmeg, salt, and pepper to the celery.

  4. Stir in the butter and flour mixture and cook for a short time longer.

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. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  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
Provides the main flavor and body of the sauce as it softens in the broth.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the sauce and gives it a smooth, velvety texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Broth
Serves as the cooking liquid that softens the celery and carries its flavor into the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the butter and flour mixture and cook for a short time longer. Flour must be cooked briefly after it is added so it thickens smoothly without leaving a raw, pasty taste or lumps. Adding it to hot liquid without stirring can cause clumping.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, flour, nutmeg, 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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