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To Stew Celery Brown

A dish of celery stewed in brown gravy with soy sauce, ketchup, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Stew Celery Brown

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the celery into pieces.

  2. Stew the celery in brown gravy with soy sauce, ketchup, and pepper.

  3. Place the celery in a dish and pour the sauce over it.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Celery + ketchuptop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together456 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Celery + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,360 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Ketchup + peppertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,207 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

Celery
Main vegetable; stewing softens its fibers into a tender texture.
Brown gravy
Liquid that carries the flavor and keeps the celery moist while stewing.
Soy sauce
Adds savory, salty depth to the stewing liquid.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and a mild tang to the sauce.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, ketchup, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, ketchup, pepper. 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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