Name: Celery a LA Grecque
Ingredients: The heart portion of 2 heads of white celery; Vinaigrette sauce; 2 teaspoons finely-chopped fennel leaves

Why it works: Celery and fennel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 276 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Celery a LA Grecque

Ingredients

The heart portion of 2 heads of white celery
Vinaigrette sauce
2 teaspoons finely-chopped fennel leaves

Directions

Prepare

Clean the celery and shred it finely.
Place it in a pie dish and pour over the vinaigrette sauce.

Marinate and serve

Sprinkle the chopped fennel leaves on top, cover, and let it stand for about 2 hours.
Arrange on a hors d'oeuvre dish and serve.

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.

Celery + fenneltop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together276 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Celery + saucetop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,360 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce + fenneltop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together181 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

White celery: Provides the crisp, fibrous body of the salad once finely shredded.
Fennel leaves: Add a mild anise aroma that complements the celery.