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Baked Celery

A baked celery dish with milk, butter, 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.

Cook the celery

  1. Prepare the celery as for a salad and stew in boiling salted water for 10 minutes.

  2. Drain the water, then add the milk, butter, pepper, and salt, and simmer for 3 minutes.

  3. Pour the mixture into a basin to cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a shallow pie dish and sprinkle the bottom with fine breadcrumbs.

  2. Once the celery is cold, beat in the egg and pour the mixture into the dish.

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

  4. Remove the cover and brown the top.

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 its vegetable flavour and tender texture.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set into a custard-like body when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and helps the top brown.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess that gives the celery a soft, saucy base.
Fine breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on top and absorb excess moisture.

The step that matters

Cool the celery before adding the egg. Adding beaten egg to hot liquid can scramble it instead of letting it blend smoothly and set evenly during baking.

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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