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Celery Croquettes

Celery croquettes are small, breaded balls of cooked celery mixed with a butter‑flour‑cream sauce, served with roast or game.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Celery Croquettes

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Celery Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut well-cleaned celery into very small pieces.

  2. Cook celery in boiling salted water until soft, then drain.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt butter and stir in flour, water, cream, and salt.

  2. Cook the sauce for 10 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Add a slightly beaten egg to the sauce and cook for 5 more minutes.

Shape and serve

  1. Mix the sauce with the cooked celery.

  2. Mould the mixture into croquettes and coat with breadcrumbs.

  3. Serve with roast or game dishes.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Flour
Forms a thickened sauce that holds the celery together in the croquettes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce and carries flavour.
Egg
Sets when heated, binding the sauce and celery so the mixture holds its shape.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sauce's texture.
Celery
Provides the main vegetable body and mild flavour of the croquettes.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce with the egg. Flour thickens the sauce only once it has cooked long enough, and the egg sets when heated. Stirring constantly prevents lumps and scorching, while the sauce must be thick enough to hold its shape when the croquettes are formed.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, egg. 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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