Skip to main content
Main

Celery, Stewed

A simple stewed celery dish thickened with flour and butter, served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the celery, ensuring the root is cut into smaller pieces for even cooking.

Cook the celery

  1. Cover the celery with boiling water or stock, add salt and peppercorns, and herbs if desired.

  2. Cook until nearly done and the liquid is almost absorbed.

Thicken and serve

  1. Stir in milk, flour, and butter for thickening, using 1 ounce of each per half pint of liquid.

  2. Serve the celery on toast with the sauce poured over.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Becomes tender as it cooks slowly in the liquid, forming the body of the dish.
Flour
Its starch swells when heated in liquid, thickening the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the sauce richness and a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Flour starch thickens only when heated in liquid, and it forms lumps if added unevenly. Blending it with butter first and stirring while the liquid is hot helps the granules disperse so the sauce turns smooth.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, flour, butter):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, flour, butter. 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.

More stewed celery recipes

with White Sauce 5with Cream 4 See all 108 →

You might also like

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCelery CroquettesCelery Croquettes16 recipesCelery Cream SoupCelery Cream Soup15 recipes