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Soup

Celery Sauce

A sauce made from boiled celery, butter, nutmeg, stock, herbs, thickened with arrowroot, finished with milk or cream and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Celery Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Cut the celery into pieces and boil in water for 10 minutes.

  2. Strain the celery, place it in cold water, then drain and dry.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stew-pan, melt the butter and add the celery and nutmeg, cooking slowly without browning.

  2. Once soft, add the white stock and herbs, bringing to a boil.

  3. Pass the mixture through a wire sieve using a wooden spoon.

  4. If needed, thicken with arrowroot and add boiling milk or cream and sugar.

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Marjoram + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Basil + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  4. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Celery
Forms the body of the sauce, giving its main flavour and bulk once cooked and puréed.
Butter
Carries the cooking of the celery, adding richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
White stock
Supplies liquid so the celery can be softened and blended into a pourable sauce.
Arrowroot
Thickens the sauce to a smoother, glossier consistency when used.
Boiling milk or cream
Adds moisture and creaminess, softening the sauce's flavour and texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the celery without browning. Cooking slowly in butter softens the celery and draws out its flavour gently. If the heat is too high and the butter browns, the sauce takes on bitter, burnt notes and loses its clean, pale colour.

Swap the arrowroot

The recipe marks arrowroot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, butter, nutmeg, marjoram, basil, lemon, thyme):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, butter, nutmeg, marjoram, basil, lemon, thyme. 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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