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Celekiac Pickled

A pickled celeriac dish preserved in vinegar and mustard gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Fennel and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 292 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Celekiac Pickled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the celeriac roots and cut them into even-sized pieces, not too thin.

  2. Parboil them in lightly salted water until three-quarters cooked.

  3. Drain the celeriac and arrange them in an earthen jar.

Pickle

  1. Boil the wine vinegar and pour it over the celeriac in the jar while hot.

  2. Add a few grains of pepper and fennel leaves, then cover the jar.

  3. Let it stand until the next day, then drain the vinegar.

  4. Transfer the celeriac to glass jars.

Add the gravy and store

  1. In a bowl, mix 4 tablespoons of English mustard flour with vinegar and red pepper to create a light gravy.

  2. Pour the gravy over the celeriac roots, cover the jar, and store it.

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. Fennel + mustardtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together292 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Pepper + fenneltop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,216 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Fennel + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together455 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 pickle, staying firm and crisp after parboiling and soaking.
Wine vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle's flavour.
English mustard flour
Thickens the light gravy and adds pungent, sharp heat to the pickle.

The step that matters

Parboil until three-quarters cooked. Parboiling only partly softens the celeriac, so it stays firm and holds its shape in the hot vinegar. Cooking it fully would make the pieces mushy when pickled.

Swap the fennel

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, vinegar, pepper, mustard, flour):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Fennelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, vinegar, pepper, mustard, flour. 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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