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Celery Sauce

A sauce made from boiled celery, butter, flour, egg yolk, salt, and paprika.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Celery Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the celery liquid

  1. Boil the minced celery in hot water for 15 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture through a cloth, pressing hard.

  3. Return the liquid to the fire and bring to a boil.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a separate pan, make a roux with the butter and flour.

  2. Combine the hot sauce with the roux.

  3. Beat the egg yolk lightly and stir it into the sauce over low heat for less than 1 minute.

  4. Season with salt and paprika, then serve.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Celery + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Provides the main savory flavor and aroma of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the roux.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter into a roux.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce as it gently sets with heat.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens by coagulating proteins, which happens around 160°F. Stirring it into a sauce over low heat for under a minute, without boiling, keeps it smooth rather than scrambled.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg. 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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