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Celery Relish

A pickled celery and red pepper relish flavored with vinegar, mustard, curry powder, flour, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Celery Relish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine celery and red peppers in a large bowl.

  2. In a separate bowl, dissolve mustard, curry, and flour in a small amount of vinegar.

Cook

  1. Bring vinegar to a boil in a large pot.

  2. Add the flour mixture to the boiling vinegar, then stir in curry, mustard, sugar, and salt.

  3. Once well blended, add the celery and peppers.

  4. Boil for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Provides the main vegetable bulk and crisp, fresh texture in the relish.
Red peppers
Adds sweetness, colour and a mild vegetable body to the relish.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the relish and gives it its sharp flavour.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the relish becomes less watery.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Curry powder
Contributes the warm, spiced aroma that defines the relish.

The step that matters

Dissolve the flour, mustard and curry in vinegar before adding to the pot. Flour clumps easily when it meets hot liquid directly. Mixing it first into a small amount of cool vinegar gives a smooth slurry that blends evenly and thickens without lumps.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, vinegar, mustard, flour, sugar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, mustard, flour, sugar. 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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