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Celery

Celery cooked in bacon broth, then fried with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Celery

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Cut off the tops of the celery, leaving about 6 inches attached to the root.

  2. Wash the celery well without parting the sticks.

  3. Put the celery into a saucepan of boiling water and scald for about 15 minutes.

  4. Plunge the celery into cold water, drain, and tie three heads together.

Braise

  1. Cover the bottom of a saucepan with thin slices of bacon, place the celery on top, and add parsley, salt, onions, and enough broth to moisten.

  2. Cover with more bacon slices and a piece of buttered paper, boil, then simmer until the celery is tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the celery bundles, drain, cut them apart, and fry in a frying pan with butter until golden brown.

  2. Serve on a dish.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 becomes tender through simmering.
Bacon
Releases fat and savory flavor into the broth and the celery as it cooks.
Broth
Moistens the pan so the celery braises gently and takes on flavor.
Butter
Fat for frying the celery, promoting browning and a golden surface.

The step that matters

Frying until golden brown. Once the celery is tender and cut apart, it needs fat and steady heat to brown. Wet or overcrowded celery steams instead of browning, so drain it well first.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, butter, parsley, onion. 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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