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Celery Sauce

A savory sauce made from celery, veal broth, butter, wine, and herbs, thickened with flour and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Celery Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Strip outer parts of celery stems, wash remaining portion, and cut into 2‑inch pieces.

  2. In a pot, combine celery pieces, mace, and veal broth; stew until very tender, especially the thick end.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate pan, sweat onion, parsley, thyme, and ham (if using) in butter until the onion is done.

  2. Stir in flour to thicken the sauce, then gradually mix in celery broth and boiling milk.

  3. Let it boil for 20 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain through a fine sieve, then add cooked celery, salt, and sugar.

  2. Serve hot and thick.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  3. Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

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

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Stewed until very tender, it gives the sauce its main flavour and body.
Veal broth
Provides the savoury liquid that cooks the celery and forms the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquids into a smooth, body-rich sauce as it cooks.
Butter
Carries the aromatics' flavour and adds richness to the sauce.
Boiling milk
Adds creaminess and mellows the sauce's savour.
Onion
Sweetens and deepens the flavour when sweated slowly in butter.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and liquids gradually. Flour must be evenly dispersed before it swells in hot liquid. Adding the broth and boiling milk slowly while stirring prevents lumps and gives a smooth, evenly thickened sauce.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, veal, butter, white wine, onion, parsley, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, veal, butter, white wine, onion, parsley, thyme. 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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