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Preserve

Celeriac, Preserved

A preserved celeriac dish made by boiling roots with flour, lemon juice, and salt, then canning in salted water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,404 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Celeriac, Preserved

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celeriac

  1. Peel and wash the celeriac roots, then cut the roots into quarters.

  2. Trim the pieces to the same size.

  3. Parboil them for 5 minutes.

Par-cook in the flour bath

  1. Bring 2 gallons of water to a boil.

  2. Mix 3 tablespoons of flour with a little cold water, then add the mixture to the boiling water along with the lemon juice and salt.

  3. Add the celeriac roots and cook until three-quarters done.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

  5. Dip the celeriac roots in lukewarm water.

Can and process

  1. Arrange them in quart tin cans.

  2. Cover the roots with lightly salted cold-boiled water.

  3. Seal the cans.

  4. Boil them in a hot water bath for 1.5 hours.

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. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Celeriac roots
Form the main body of the preserve and keep their firm, tender texture after cooking.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so it clings lightly to the roots.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and helps keep the roots pale.

The step that matters

Cooking until three-quarters done. Stopping at the right point leaves the roots firm enough to survive canning and the long hot water bath. Cooking them fully now would leave them soft and mushy once processed.

“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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