Skip to main content
Main

Celery Puree, for Garniture

A smooth celery puree made with butter, broth, and cream, used as a garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Celery Puree, for Garniture

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Clean and trim the celery, cutting the white parts into small pieces.

  2. Parboil the celery pieces for 10 minutes. Immerse in cold water, then drain.

Cook

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the celery.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and sugar.

  3. Add enough white broth to cover the celery and cover the saucepan. Cook on brisk heat until moisture is reduced and celery is tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the Allemande or cream sauce.

  2. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve back into the saucepan.

  3. Add the heavy cream and stir until the desired consistency is reached.

  4. Add a small piece of butter before serving.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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 puree and, once cooked and sieved, gives it its smooth body and flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and giving the puree a silky mouthfeel.
Allemande or cream sauce
Adds body and creaminess, thickening the puree and softening its texture.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and richness, smoothing the texture and helping set the final consistency.

The step that matters

Reducing the moisture after adding broth. Cooking on brisk heat with the lid on softens the celery, then the lid must come off or the liquid must be reduced enough. Too much leftover liquid makes the puree thin and watery, so the celery should be tender with little moisture left before sieving.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, nutmeg, sugar, cream):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, nutmeg, sugar, cream. 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.

You might also like

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