Skip to main content
Sauce

Celery Sauce

A pickled sauce made from green tomatoes, cabbage, celery, cinnamon, and sweetened vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Celery Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, cabbage, and celery.

  2. Sprinkle the chopped tomatoes and cabbage with salt and let them sit overnight.

Make the sauce

  1. Sweeten the vinegar and heat it well.

  2. Combine all ingredients and seal in glass jars.

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. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

  3. Celery + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,009 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,348 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together336 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

Green tomatoes
Provide the main bulk and tart body of the sauce.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a crisp texture that softens during standing.
Celery
Contributes savory, vegetal flavor and crunch to the sauce.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and spice that complements the sweetened vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the sauce and balances sweetness.

The step that matters

Salting and resting the tomatoes and cabbage overnight. Salt draws water out of the vegetables by osmosis, so they soften and lose excess liquid. Skipping or shortening this rest leaves the sauce watery and less concentrated in flavor.

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cabbage, celery, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Pepperfits better
  4. Cinnamonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cabbage, celery, vinegar. 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.

More celery sauce recipes

White 5Brown 3for Boiled Turkey 3for Turkey 3 See all 250 →

You might also like

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipesDutch SauceDutch Sauce74 recipes