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Celery, Stewed

Stewed celery served with diabetic white sauce or grated cheese and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Celery, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the celery well.

  2. Cut the celery into even lengths.

  3. Tie the celery together.

Cook

  1. Boil the celery in stock if possible.

Serve and bake

  1. Serve in a hot vegetable dish and pour diabetic white sauce over it.

  2. Alternatively, sprinkle grated cheese over the celery.

  3. Add a few scraps of butter on top.

  4. Bake for 5 minutes.

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

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

  2. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + cheesetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Celery + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,360 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Celery
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its texture and mild flavour.
Diabetic white sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy coating over the celery.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and helps the top brown when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the top of the dish.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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