Name: Stewed Celery
Ingredients: 5-6 roots of celery; Coarse sea salt (to taste); 1 tablespoon fresh butter; Broth or common stock (enough to cover celery); Flour or arrowroot (for thickening); Black pepper (to taste); ½ cup cream

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 ↓

Stewed Celery

Ingredients

5-6 roots of celery
Coarse sea salt (to taste)
1 tablespoon fresh butter
Broth or common stock (enough to cover celery)
Flour or arrowroot (for thickening)
Black pepper (to taste)
½ cup cream

Directions

Prepare

Cut celery roots to fit the serving dish and remove leaves and coarse parts.
Wash the celery thoroughly in several waters until clean.

Cook and serve

Boil the celery in enough water to cover it, with salt and butter, until tender (25-30 minutes).
Drain the celery and arrange it on a hot dish.
Pour a thick béchamel or white sauce over the celery.
Alternatively, stew it in broth and serve with thickened brown gravy.
For a quicker method, slice the celery and simmer in broth until soft, then thicken with flour or arrowroot, adding cream, salt, and pepper.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 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).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,905 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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 main body of the dish, becoming soft and tender when cooked.
Butter: Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the cooked celery.
Flour or arrowroot: Thickens the broth into a gravy-like sauce that coats the celery.
Cream: Adds richness and body to the thickened sauce.