Skip to main content
Sauce

Celery Sauce

A sauce made from tomatoes, onions, celery, spices, brown sugar, vinegar, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Celery Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and peel the tomatoes, then cut them into small pieces.

  2. Chop the onions and celery together.

Cook and store

  1. Combine the tomatoes, onions, celery, and all other ingredients in a pot.

  2. Simmer slowly until the mixture thickens.

  3. Transfer to jars for storage.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  5. Allspice + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and moisture that cook down into the sauce.
Onions
Add savory bulk and sweetness as they soften during simmering.
Celery
Contributes aromatic, vegetal flavour and fibrous texture to the sauce.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the acidity of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Supplies acidity that brightens flavour and helps preserve the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly until the mixture thickens. Gentle heat lets water evaporate gradually and the vegetables break down, so the sauce thickens evenly without scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, clove, allspice, tomato, celery, sugar, vinegar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, clove, allspice, tomato, celery, sugar, vinegar. 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.

More celery sauce recipes

White 5Brown 3for Boiled Turkey 3for Turkey 3 See all 250 →

You might also like

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipesDutch SauceDutch Sauce74 recipes