Name: To Stew Celery
Ingredients: celery; butter; water; cream; flour; coarse sea salt; nutmeg; pepper

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Stew Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Strip off the outer leaves of the celery and wash it clean.
Halve or leave the celery whole, depending on its size, and cut it into lengths of about three inches.

Make the stew

Stew the celery in a little butter and water until tender.
Add a little cream and flour seasoned with salt, nutmeg, and pepper, and simmer the mixture together.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,331 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 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: Forms the main body of the stew and becomes tender as it cooks.
Butter: Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and helps soften the celery.
Cream: Adds richness and body, giving the stew a smoother, creamier texture.
Flour: Thickens the liquid as it simmers, giving the sauce body.

Swap the celery

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

Cinnamonfits better
Parsleyfits better
Cardamomfits better
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, flour, nutmeg, pepper. 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.