Name: Celery Root
Ingredients: celery root; butter; soup stock; parsley

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Celery Root

Ingredients

celery root
butter
soup stock
parsley

Directions

Wash and boil the celery roots with the skins until tender.
Peel the roots and cut them into slices.
Prepare a butter sauce using soup stock.
Serve the celery root slices with the butter sauce and flavor with parsley.

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.

Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Celery + buttertop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,049 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).