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Celery Stewed, Spanish Style

A Spanish-style celery stew simmered with butter, tomato sauce, and Espagnole sauce, garnished with toast of marrow.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Celery Stewed, Spanish Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Clean and wash the celery, cutting the white part into 2‑inch pieces.

  2. Parboil the celery for 3 minutes, then immerse in cold water and dry on a napkin.

Braise the celery

  1. In a flat saucepan, melt the butter and add the celery, seasoning with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and sugar.

  2. Cover and simmer until moisture is reduced, then add white broth.

  3. Cook on high heat until reduced to a glaze and the celery is tender.

  4. Stir in the tomato sauce and Espagnole sauce, cooking slowly for 10 minutes.

  5. Add the butter and chopped parsley, tossing well over heat.

Serve

  1. Serve with small toast of marrow around the dish as a garnish.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Is the main vegetable, becoming tender and glazed as it cooks down.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the seasoning, helping the celery brown lightly in the pan.
White broth
Provides moisture that reduces into a savoury glaze around the celery.
Tomato sauce
Adds acidity and colour to the reduced cooking liquid.
Espagnole sauce
Adds body and depth, thickening the reduced liquid into a richer sauce.

The step that matters

Reducing the moisture and glazing the celery. If the celery is covered too long or the liquid is not reduced, it stays watery and soft. Reducing over high heat concentrates the flavour and lets the sauce cling to the pieces as a glaze.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, butter, pepper, nutmeg, sugar, sauce, parsley):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, butter, pepper, nutmeg, sugar, sauce, parsley. 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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