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Sauce

Celery Sauce, for Boiled Turkey, Poultry, &C.

A sauce made from boiled celery, stock, mace, savory herbs, butter, flour or arrowroot, cream, and lemon juice, seasoned with salt and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Celery Sauce, for Boiled Turkey, Poultry, &C.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Boil the celery in salted water until tender.

  2. Cut the boiled celery into 2-inch pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine the stock, mace, and herbs in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer the mixture for 30 minutes to extract flavor.

  3. Strain the liquid.

  4. Add the celery to the strained liquid.

  5. Thicken the sauce with butter kneaded with flour or arrowroot.

  6. Stir in the cream.

  7. Bring the sauce to a boil.

  8. Add lemon juice.

  9. Season with salt and white pepper to taste.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Forms the body of the sauce and gives its fresh, vegetal flavor.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and, kneaded with flour, thickens it as a roux-like paste.
Flour or arrowroot
Thickens the stock so the sauce coats the turkey instead of running off.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Bring the sauce to a boil after adding the cream. Cream can curdle or separate if it is overheated, but the sauce must reach a boil to fully thicken the flour or arrowroot. Heat it steadily and watch closely so it thickens without breaking.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, mace, butter, flour, cream, lemon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, mace, butter, flour, cream, lemon. 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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