Why it works: Endive and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 160 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓
Endive
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the endive thoroughly and soak in salt water for 3 hours.
Wash and scrape the celery, then cut it into 3-inch pieces.
Drain the endive and leave the largest head whole. Separate the others into leaves.
Cook
In a saucepan, combine the celery, water, mace, and white pepper. Cook until tender.
Add the chopped endive and simmer until cooked.
Add the endive leaves to the saucepan with white wine. Cover and boil until tender.
Mix in the butter rolled in flour, cover, and shake the pan until combined.
Serve
Arrange the whole endive head in the center of a serving dish, surround it with the celery and endive leaves, and top with the remaining endive leaves.
Pour the cooking liquid over the dish and serve.
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.
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Endive + celerytop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together160 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Endive + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together111 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,083 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,695 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Butter
- Adds richness and body to the cooking liquid, giving it a smooth, silky finish.
- Flour
- Thickens the butter and cooking liquid, giving the sauce body.
- White wine
- Adds acidity and aroma to the cooking liquid.
- Celery
- Adds a mild, savoury flavour and aroma to the cooking liquid.
The step that matters
Mix in the butter rolled in flour. Flour coated on the butter disperses into the hot liquid without lumps and thickens it as the butter melts. Shaking the pan keeps the mixture moving so the sauce turns smooth rather than clumped.
Swap the white pepper
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (endive, mace, celery, butter, flour, white wine):
- Tarragonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Thymefits better
- White pepperthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against endive, mace, celery, butter, flour, white wine. 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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