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Baked Celery, with Cheese

A baked celery dish topped with cheese, butter, pepper, sea salt, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Baked Celery, with Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cut the celery into 1‑inch pieces and split them.

  2. Boil the celery in salted water for 10 minutes, then drain.

Bake and serve

  1. In a baking dish, mix the celery with the grated cheese, butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 20 minutes.

  3. Pour the gravy over the baked celery and serve.

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

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

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Celery + cheesetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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 boiled and baked.
Grated cheese
Melts into the celery, adding richness and a golden, browned top when baked.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and keeps the celery moist during baking.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor when poured over the baked celery.

The step that matters

Draining the boiled celery. Celery holds a lot of water after boiling. If it is not drained well, excess moisture dilutes the cheese and butter and makes the dish soggy instead of rich.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, pepper. 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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