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Celery Au Gratin

A baked dish of celery topped with butter and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Celery Au Gratin

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Celery Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Scrape, wash, and cut the celery into 1-inch lengths.

  2. Stew the celery in salted water until tender, then drain.

Bake and serve

  1. Lay the celery in a baking dish and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Cover with rich drawn butter and sprinkle with fine breadcrumbs.

  3. Brown lightly in the oven.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. 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
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender when stewed.
Rich drawn butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the top brown and moistening the celery.
Fine breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on top when baked.

The step that matters

Brown lightly in the oven. Breadcrumbs and butter brown quickly through the Maillard reaction and can scorch if left too long. Pull the dish once the top is golden, since the celery underneath is already cooked.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter. 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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