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Celery-sauce

A sauce made from parboiled celery, butter, optional milk or cream, seasoned with nutmeg and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Celery-sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Parboil the celery pieces in water until tender.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan, adding milk or cream if desired.

  3. Add the parboiled celery to the melted butter mixture.

  4. Season with grated nutmeg and white pepper.

  5. Bring to a boil, but do not let it boil over to prevent curdling.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Celery + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,331 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + white peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Provides the main flavour and body of the sauce once cooked and blended into the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and creaminess, giving the sauce a smoother, looser texture.

The step that matters

Bringing the sauce to a boil. Milk and cream proteins can curdle when overheated or boiled hard. Bring the mixture up slowly and watch it closely so it does not boil over or separate.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, butter, milk, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, butter, milk, nutmeg. 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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