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Celery Sauce Puree, for Boiled Turkey, Veal, Fowls, &C.

A smooth celery sauce made by sweating celery and onions, thickened with flour, and finished with cream or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Celery Sauce Puree, for Boiled Turkey, Veal, Fowls, &C.

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a two-quart saucepan, sweat the celery and onions with the butter over low heat until tender.

  2. Add the flour, water (or broth), salt, and pepper; stir well.

  3. Boil for 15 minutes, then pass through a fine sieve using the back of a spoon.

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. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 sauce and gives its main flavour and body once puréed.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it cooks, giving the sauce body.
Butter
Softens the celery and onions gently and adds richness to the sauce.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma as they soften with the celery.

The step that matters

Boil for 15 minutes after adding the flour. The flour needs to cook through while the liquid simmers, or the sauce will taste raw and pasty. Stirring well after adding it helps prevent lumps from forming.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, flour, beef, pepper, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, flour, beef, pepper, 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.

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