Name: Celery, with Gravy a LA Bonne Fenune
Ingredients: 2 bunches Kalamazoo celery; ½ pint broth; ½ cup white roux; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 12 whole black peppercorns; ⅓ pinch nutmeg; ½ cup clear gravy or ½ ounce butter

Why it works: Celery and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,331 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Celery, with Gravy a LA Bonne Fenune

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Reserve 2 heads of celery for hors-d'oeuvres. Clean and pare the outer branches, cutting off hard leaves.
Cut celery into equal lengths and blanch in boiling water for 5 minutes.
Drain the celery and add broth to the water.

Make the sauce and cook

In a sautoire, combine celery with white roux, salt, peppercorns, and nutmeg.
Cook for 25 minutes.
Finish the sauce with clear gravy or butter.

Serve

Place celery in a hot dish, pour sauce over, and 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.

Celery + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,331 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together24,377 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Celery + buttertop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,049 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).