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Sauce

Celery Sauce

A sauce made from celery, butter, flour, and white sauce, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Celery Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim and wash the white parts of the celery, then cut into small pieces about 1 inch long.

Make the sauce

  1. Place the celery in a saucepan with the butter, cover, and stew until soft.

  2. Gradually mix in the flour, then add the white sauce.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 main body of the sauce and gives it its fresh, mild vegetable flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor while the celery softens gently in the covered pan.
Flour
Starch that thickens the liquid into a smooth, body-rich sauce as it heats.
White sauce
Supplies the main liquid and creaminess that bring the sauce together.

The step that matters

Gradually mixing in the flour. Adding flour in portions while stirring spreads the starch evenly so it does not clump. Starch thickens as it heats, so an even blend gives a smooth sauce.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Celerythe original

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