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Celery and Cheese Baked

A baked dish of celery, cheese, bread crumbs, and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Celery and Cheese Baked

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the celery

  1. Cook the celery in salted water until tender.

  2. Drain the celery and reserve ½ cup of the cooking liquid.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour, and mix until smooth.

  2. Stir in the reserved celery liquid and milk, and cook until thick.

  3. Add ½ cup of cheese and stir until melted.

  4. Mix the cheese with the cooked celery, seasoning with salt and pepper.

Bake and serve

  1. Combine the bread crumbs with 1 tablespoon of butter.

  2. Layer the celery mixture and bread crumbs in a baking dish, sprinkling cheese on top.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until brown.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Celery
Forms the bulk of the dish and provides its main vegetable flavor and texture.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and helps the bread crumbs brown in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth white sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, making it creamy when thickened.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce and browns on top for richness and flavor.
Stale bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that contrasts with the soft filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the sauce until thick. Flour must cook in the melted butter and liquid long enough to swell and thicken fully; undercooked flour leaves a raw, pasty taste and a thin sauce.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, cheese, milk, butter, flour, 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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