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Stewed Celery

A dish of boiled celery simmered in butter and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,049 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Stewed Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Remove all leaves from the celery stalks and scrape off any dark spots.

  2. Cut the celery into 3-inch pieces.

  3. Soak the celery in cold water.

  4. Wash and drain the celery.

Blanch the celery

  1. Bring a pot of water to a boil.

  2. Add the celery to the boiling water with 1 teaspoon of salt for every 2 quarts of water.

  3. Boil rapidly for 15 minutes with the lid partially off.

  4. Pour off the water.

  5. Rinse the celery with cold water.

  6. Drain the celery.

Stew and serve

  1. In a stewpan, combine the celery with ½ cup of butter and 1 teaspoon of salt for each quart of celery.

  2. Cover the stewpan.

  3. Cook slowly for 15 minutes, shaking the pan frequently.

  4. Serve hot.

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 + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery stalks
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and soft as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving the stewed celery a smooth coating.

The step that matters

Boil rapidly for 15 minutes with the lid partially off. Boiling the celery in salted water softens it and mellows its raw bitterness. Keeping the boil vigorous and the lid partly open lets steam escape, so the celery does not become waterlogged or dull in colour.

“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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