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Celery, Stewed, a LA Creme

Stewed celery served with a cream sauce flavored with mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,769 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Celery, Stewed, a LA Creme

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the celery thoroughly and trim it.

Cook

  1. Boil the celery in salted water until tender, about 25 minutes for large heads and 15-20 minutes for small ones.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the cream and pounded mace, and heat until the cream thickens.

Serve

  1. Dish the cooked celery, pour the sauce over it, and serve.

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 + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Mace + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes
  3. Celery + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,863 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Forms the tender vegetable base that the cream sauce is served over.
Cream
Thickens on heating to form a rich, smooth sauce that coats the celery.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the cream sauce.

The step that matters

Heating the cream until it thickens. Cream can curdle or scorch if overheated, so it should be heated gently and watched closely. Gentle heat lets the cream thicken smoothly and keeps the sauce from separating or sticking to the pan.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mace, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. White pepperfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mace, cream. 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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