Name: Celery with Tomato Sauce
Ingredients: 6 roots of celery; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 pint tomato sauce

Why it works: Celery and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Celery with Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

6 roots of celery
1 teaspoon salt
1 pint tomato sauce

Directions

Prepare

Trim the green ends from the celery, keeping the stalks intact.
Clean the celery by plunging it in and out of cold water to remove sand.

Cook and serve

Place the celery in a kettle of boiling water and add 1 teaspoon of salt.
Boil for 20 minutes, then drain.
Arrange the celery on a flat dish with the roots all facing the same way.
Pour 1 pint of tomato sauce over the celery 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.

Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,469 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Celery + saucetop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,360 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 boiling softens its fibrous stalks until tender.
Tomato sauce: Adds moisture and a tangy, savoury flavour that coats the cooked celery.