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To Stew Celery

A dish of celery simmered in stock and thickened with flour and butter, seasoned with pepper, salt, and browning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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To Stew Celery

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 ↓

To Stew Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and trim the celery.

  2. Boil the celery in boiling water for 5 minutes.

  3. Drain the celery and place it in a stewpan with stock to cover.

Stew and thicken

  1. Stew gently for about 30 minutes until tender.

  2. Thicken the gravy with flour and butter, then add pepper, salt, and browning.

  3. Boil for an additional 15 minutes and serve the celery with the sauce poured over it.

  4. Optionally, use white stock instead of brown and add milk when thickening the sauce.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Is the vegetable that becomes tender through boiling and stewing.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a gravy as it cooks with the butter.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and helps the flour thicken it smoothly.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the flavour of the sauce when used.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy with flour and butter. Flour must be cooked with the butter before or as liquid is added, otherwise it clumps and leaves a raw, pasty taste. Adding it to hot stock while stirring gives a smooth, even sauce.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, pepper, milk. 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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