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Celery Fried, Villeroi

Celery fried in lard after being parboiled, coated in breadcrumbs and eggs, served with Villeroi sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Fried, Villeroi

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Trim and wash the celery, then cut the tender stems into 4-inch pieces.

  2. Parboil the celery pieces for 5 minutes.

  3. Immerse the parboiled celery in cold water and drain on a napkin.

  4. Place the celery in a saucepan with broth to cover, season with salt, pepper, and sugar, and cook slowly until tender.

  5. Remove the celery and drain off moisture on a napkin.

Coat the celery

  1. Dip the celery in cooled Villeroi sauce.

  2. Place the sauced celery on a pan in a cool place until the sauce is firm.

  3. Trim the celery.

  4. Roll the trimmed celery in fresh bread crumbs.

  5. Dip the breaded celery in beaten eggs.

  6. Dip the celery again in fresh bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the breaded celery in hot lard until golden brown.

  2. Serve on a napkin, garnished with fried parsley.

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

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

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender through slow simmering in broth.
Villeroi sauce
Creates a thick, firm coating that holds the breadcrumbs in place.
Eggs
Bind the breadcrumb coating so it adheres and fries evenly.
Fresh bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and encourages browning of the crumb coating.

The step that matters

Letting the sauce set before breading. The sauced celery must be chilled until the Villeroi sauce is firm. If it is still soft, the breadcrumbs and egg coating slide off or the sauce runs during frying.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, sugar, sauce, bread, egg, parsley):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sugar, sauce, bread, egg, 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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