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A Ragout of Celery

A ragout made with celery, flour, rich gravy, red wine, ketchup, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

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 ↓

A Ragout of Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Cut the white part of the celery into lengths.

  2. Boil the celery until tender.

Fry and sauce

  1. Fry and drain the celery, then coat it with flour.

  2. Place the celery in rich gravy, add red wine, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and ketchup.

  3. Boil the mixture until heated through.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Celery + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,331 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Ketchup + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 ragout and gives it a tender, vegetable texture.
Flour
Coats the celery so it browns when fried and helps thicken the sauce.
Rich gravy
Provides the liquid base and savoury richness that carries the dish.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Fry and drain the celery, then coat it with flour. Frying after boiling gives the celery a browned surface and flour adds a coating that helps the sauce cling and thicken. Draining well keeps excess oil from diluting the gravy.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, red wine, pepper, ketchup, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, red wine, pepper, ketchup, flour. 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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