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Celery Sauce

A sweet and spicy tomato-based sauce with celery, onions, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Celery Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the tomatoes, peel, and cut them into pieces.

  2. Chop the onions and celery.

Combine

  1. Add the chopped onions and celery to the tomatoes.

  2. Add the remaining ingredients.

  3. Tie the spices in cheesecloth.

Cook and seal

  1. Cook slowly until thick.

  2. Seal the mixture in sterile jars.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  5. Celery + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, moisture and tangy flavor of the sauce.
Celery
Adds savory, vegetal flavor and fibrous texture that breaks down as it cooks.
Onions
Add savory depth and aromatic sweetness as they soften during cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps darken and thicken the sauce as it cooks down.
Vinegar
Supplies acidity that balances sweetness and helps preserve the sauce.
Cinnamon stick
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavor infused into the sauce from the cheesecloth bag.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until thick. Gentle heat lets water evaporate slowly so the sauce thickens evenly. High heat scorches the sugars and makes the sauce stick and burn on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, celery, sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, clove, allspice):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, clove, allspice. 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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