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Drink

Celery

A vinegar infused with celery seed or sliced celery roots, used for salad dressings and sauces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Celery

Why it works: Celery and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,794 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Heat and cool

  1. Mix all ingredients in a porcelain-lined kettle.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Let the mixture cool.

Steep and bottle

  1. Bottle the mixture.

  2. Shake the bottle daily for two weeks.

Strain and cork

  1. Strain the mixture through a fine cloth or filter.

  2. Bottle the strained vinegar.

  3. Cork the bottle tightly.

Add the celery roots

  1. Peel the celery roots.

  2. Slice the roots thinly.

  3. Add the sliced roots to the vinegar.

  4. Follow the same steps.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,794 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cider vinegar
Provides the acidic base that extracts and preserves the celery flavor.
Celery seed
Adds a concentrated celery aroma to the vinegar.
Celery roots
Contribute fresh celery flavor as they steep in the vinegar.
Granulated sugar
Softens the sharpness of the vinegar's acidity.

The step that matters

Shake the bottle daily for two weeks. Regular shaking keeps the liquid moving so flavor compounds from the seeds or roots dissolve and spread evenly. Skipping days can leave the vinegar unevenly flavored.

“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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