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Celery Sauce

A sauce made from partridge stock, onion, carrot, celery, egg yolks, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Celery Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the partridge

  1. Truss the partridge and place it in a small saucepan.

  2. Moisten with cold chicken broth and bring to a boil.

  3. Remove any scum that forms on the surface.

  4. Add the onion, carrot, and chopped celery to the saucepan.

  5. Once the partridge is cooked, remove it and place it on a dish.

  6. Discard the onion and carrot.

Finish the sauce

  1. Thicken the broth with a roux.

  2. Bind the sauce with the egg yolks and cream.

  3. Season to taste and pour the sauce over the partridge.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Bind the sauce and add richness as they thicken with gentle heat.
Cream
Adds fat and smoothness, giving the sauce a rounder mouthfeel.
Celery
Contributes its aromatic flavor to the broth during poaching.
Chicken broth
Serves as the cooking liquid that carries flavor from the partridge and vegetables into the sauce.

The step that matters

Bind the sauce with the egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat and can scramble if the sauce boils. Keep it below a simmer and stir constantly so the sauce turns silky rather than grainy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, carrot, celery, egg, cream, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, carrot, celery, egg, cream, 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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