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Sauce

Celery Sauce

A savory sauce made from celery, tomatoes, onions, peppers, garlic, mustard, curry powder, brown sugar, cayenne pepper, vinegar, black pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Celery Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the celery, tomatoes, onions, green peppers, and garlic separately.

Cook

  1. In a large pot, combine all chopped ingredients with mustard, curry powder, brown sugar, cayenne pepper, vinegar, black pepper, and salt.

  2. Bring to a boil and simmer for 1.5 hours.

  3. Bottle the sauce while hot.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide tart body and bulk that gives the sauce its thick, chunky texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the sauce.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the vinegar and deepens the color as it simmers.
Celery
Adds fresh, vegetal flavor and fibrous texture to the sauce.
White onions
Add savory sweetness and body as they soften during simmering.

The step that matters

Simmering for 1.5 hours. Long simmering softens the chopped vegetables and lets the vinegar and sugar meld into a thick, cohesive sauce. Stopping early leaves it thin and harsh, while the vinegar's acidity concentrates as water evaporates.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, tomato, onion, pepper, mustard, sugar, garlic):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, tomato, onion, pepper, mustard, sugar, garlic. 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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