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Celery Sauce

A sauce made from boiled celery, broth, cream, and seasonings, served over meat or as a bowl.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Celery Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Wash the celery and remove any dark spots.

  2. Boil the celery in salted water for 15 minutes, then drain and cut into small pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, rub together the butter and flour.

  2. Add the broth, cream, mace or nutmeg, and a little salt to the saucepan.

  3. Stew gently until the celery is tender and pulpy.

  4. Serve over meat or in a bowl for individual use.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Celery + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,761 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Flour and butter 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 sauce, softening into a pulpy texture as it stews.
Butter and flour
Flour thickens the sauce and butter carries flavour and richness when rubbed together.
Broth
Provides the savoury liquid base that the celery stews in.
Cream or rich milk
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stew gently until the celery is tender and pulpy. Stewing over high heat can scorch the cream and break the sauce, so gentle heat lets the celery soften fully while the dairy stays smooth.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

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