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To Stew Celery White

A stew of white celery cooked in veal gravy, mace, butter, flour, salt, white pepper, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Stew Celery White

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Remove the outside leaves and green ends from the celery.

  2. Cut the white part into 4-inch pieces and wash them clean.

Make the stew

  1. Stew the celery in veal gravy with the mace until tender.

  2. Thicken the gravy with butter rolled in flour, salt, and white pepper.

  3. Stir in the cream; if unavailable, use milk instead.

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

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

  2. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Celery + white peppertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together853 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 stew and becomes tender through slow stewing.
Veal gravy
Provides the liquid base and savory flavor in which the celery cooks.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the gravy into a smooth, body-rich sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the thickened gravy.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with butter rolled in flour. Flour needs to be cooked into the fat and liquid to thicken smoothly; adding it unevenly can leave lumps or a raw, pasty taste.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, veal, mace, butter, flour, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, veal, mace, butter, flour, 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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