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Fondu of Celery

A custard-like dish made from celery, milk, eggs, and butter, baked in ramekins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fondu of Celery

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the celery

  1. Wash and clean the celery, then chop it finely.

  2. Place the chopped celery in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Add salt.

  3. Strain the celery and transfer it to another saucepan. Add milk and bouquet garni.

  4. Cook until the celery is tender enough to pass through a sieve.

Make the fondue base

  1. Add butter and flour, cooking until the mixture thickens.

  2. Season with salt and cayenne pepper, then stir in lemon juice.

  3. Beat the egg yolks until creamy, then fold in the whipped egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into ramekin cases, filling them halfway.

  2. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and add a small piece of butter on top.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for 15 minutes.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Provides the main flavour and, once cooked and sieved, the body of the fondue.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, softening the celery into a smooth base.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the sauce feel smooth and well rounded.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the mixture as it cooks, giving the fondue its body.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they add lightness and help the fondue rise in the oven.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives the fondue lift. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring hard deflates the mixture and leaves it dense.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, flour, pepper, lemon, egg, bread):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, pepper, lemon, egg, bread. 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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