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Fried Celery and Tomato Sauce

A dish of battered and fried celery served with a tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fried Celery and Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Wash the celery and cut it into 3‑inch pieces.

  2. Dip the celery pieces in the batter made from flour, pepper, salt, milk, and egg.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the battered celery in deep fat until golden brown.

  2. Drain the fried celery and serve with tomato sauce.

Make the tomato sauce

  1. For the tomato sauce, cook the onion with the tomatoes for 15 minutes.

  2. Rub the mixture through a strainer.

  3. Add butter blended with flour and season with salt and pepper.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread flour
Forms the batter that coats the celery and crisps when fried.
Egg
Binds the batter so it clings to the celery pieces.
Milk
Thins the batter to a coating consistency and adds moisture.
Tomatoes
Provide the base of the sauce, adding acidity and body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce, with flour to thicken it.

The step that matters

Frying the battered celery in deep fat. The oil must be hot enough to set the batter quickly and brown it. If the oil is too cool, the batter absorbs fat and turns greasy and soggy instead of crisp.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, flour, pepper, milk, egg, tomato):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, pepper, milk, egg, tomato. 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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