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Celery with Parmesan Cheese

Celery topped with Parmesan cheese, breadcrumbs, and butter, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Celery with Parmesan Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Prepare the celery as directed in the previous recipe.

  2. Mix the grated Parmesan cheese into the Allemande sauce.

  3. Place the celery in a buttered baking dish or shells.

Bake

  1. Sprinkle the top with bread crumbs and additional grated cheese, then add a small piece of butter on top.

  2. Clean the edges of the dish and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until golden.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Celery + parmesan cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together523 recipes

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

  5. Parmesan cheese + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together577 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 dish and carries the sauce.
Allemande sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy texture that coats the celery.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps the top brown when baked.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that adds texture and golden color.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the topping brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Clean the edges of the dish and bake until golden. Sauce or crumbs left on the dish rim can scorch before the top browns. Baking until golden, rather than by time alone, shows the topping is set and browned.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, parmesan cheese, bread, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, parmesan cheese, bread, 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.

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