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Sauce

Celery Sauce

A sauce made from celery, veal gravy, flour, egg yolks, lemon juice, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Celery Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Cut the celery into small pieces and peel if not very young.

Make the sauce

  1. Simmer the celery in veal gravy until tender.

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, egg yolks, white pepper, salt, and lemon juice with a little water until smooth.

  3. Stir the mixture into the sauce and cook until thickened.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  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. White pepper + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,658 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Celery + white peppertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together853 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Forms the main body and flavour of the sauce as it softens and breaks down.
Veal gravy
Provides the liquid and savoury base in which the celery cooks.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness when gently heated.
Flour
Helps thicken the sauce and gives it a smooth, stable body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Stir the egg yolk mixture into the sauce and cook until thickened. Egg yolks can curdle if they get too hot or are added directly to boiling liquid. Stirring the mixture in gently and keeping the heat moderate lets it thicken smoothly.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, veal, flour, egg, lemon. 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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