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Stewed Celery

A simple celery stew simmered in water, thickened with flour and butter, finished with cream or milk, seasoned with 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 ↓

Stewed Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the celery stalks and cut them into 1‑inch pieces.

  2. Soak the pieces in cold water for 1 hour.

  3. Drain the celery and place it in a stew pan, covering it with boiling water.

Stew and serve

  1. Simmer slowly for 30 minutes until the water reduces to about ½ cup.

  2. Add 1 cup of cream or milk and bring to a boil.

  3. Thicken the mixture with 1 tablespoon of flour rubbed smooth in 1 tablespoon of butter.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, then 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.

  1. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Celery + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,863 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Celery stalks
Forms the body of the dish and softens into tender pieces during long, slow simmering.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the reduced cooking liquid.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells when heated, giving the sauce body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the flour blend smoothly into the liquid.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour and butter. Flour must be rubbed smooth into the butter before it goes in, so its starch disperses evenly. Added as lumps, it forms clumps that stay raw inside. The mixture must then be kept hot enough for the starch to swell and thicken.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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