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To Stew Celery

A creamy celery stew made with butter, flour, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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To Stew Celery

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

  1. Wash the celery and remove any discolored parts; use 5 heads if much is cut off.

  2. Cut the celery into 2‑inch pieces, cover with water, and boil steadily for 30 minutes.

Make the stew

  1. Add the cream and stew for another 30 minutes.

  2. Cream the flour and butter together, then add to the celery and stir until it thickens.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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.

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

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Celery + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,863 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 body of the stew and gives its main flavor and texture after long boiling.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the stewed celery.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it cooks, giving the stew body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the flour blend smoothly into the stew.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and butter mixture. Flour must be creamed with butter first so it disperses without lumps. Added directly to hot liquid, flour clumps, and the stew thickens unevenly.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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