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Baked Celery

A baked celery casserole with milk, butter, flour, egg, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Baked Celery

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. Wash and trim the celery, cutting it into 1-inch pieces.

  2. Boil the celery in water with salt for 10 minutes, then drain.

Make the sauce

  1. Return the celery to the saucepan with milk, butter, flour, pepper, and salt; heat until hot.

  2. Simmer for 3 minutes, then pour into a bowl and let cool.

  3. Once cool, beat the egg and stir it into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Butter a flat pudding dish and pour the celery mixture into it.

  2. Strew breadcrumbs over the top, cover, and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 bulk of the dish and gives it its main vegetable flavour and texture.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set firm when baked.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a sauce that holds the celery together.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that softens and moistens the celery.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the egg. Eggs scramble when they meet hot liquid, which leaves specks of cooked egg and an uneven texture. Cooling the mixture first lets the egg blend in smoothly and set evenly in the oven.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, pepper, egg. 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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