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Celery Soy

A pickled tomato sauce flavored with celery seed, spices, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 Soy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the tomatoes for 1 hour.

  2. Add salt, white pepper, cayenne pepper, chopped onions, and sugar.

  3. Just before removing from heat, stir in the vinegar.

Finish and bottle

  1. When cold, mix in the rolled celery seed, ground cloves, and allspice.

  2. Let the mixture stand overnight.

  3. Press through a sieve and bottle tightly.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 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

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and provide its body and flavour when boiled down.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and salt.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the sauce and gives it its sharp tang.
Onions
Add savoury flavour and aroma to the sauce base.
Celery seed
Supplies the characteristic celery flavour of the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the vinegar just before removing from heat. Vinegar is added late so its sharp acidity and volatile aroma are not cooked off during prolonged boiling, keeping the sauce tangy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, onion, sugar, vinegar, celery, clove):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, onion, sugar, vinegar, celery, clove. 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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