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Ground Celery Loaf

A loaf of ground celery, apple, onion, and nuts baked with a buttery sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Ground Celery Loaf

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the loaf

  1. In an omelet pan, melt ⅓ pound of butter and fry the minced onion for 5 minutes.

  2. Combine the fried onion with the ground celery and sour apple, and stir until coated.

  3. Beat the eggs and mix with the milk, then pour over the crumb mixture and let soak.

  4. Grind the mixed nuts and stir into the soaked crumbs, reserving 1 tablespoon for the sauce.

  5. Shape the mixture into an oblong loaf, about 4 inches wide and 3 inches thick.

  6. Place the loaf on a buttered tin sheet with holes and set it in a roasting pan.

Bake the loaf

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 1.5 hours, basting with hot water and melted butter.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a pan, add minced onion and sour apple, and cook until soft.

  2. Stir in 2 tablespoons of flour and cook until brown, then slowly add 1 pint of hot milk while stirring.

  3. Add 1 cup of hot water from the roasting pan, and let it boil while stirring.

  4. Mix in the reserved ground nuts, lemon juice, and salt until thickened.

  5. Serve the loaf garnished with orange slices and parsley.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Celery + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  4. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Butter + pecanstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,416 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the crumb mixture so the loaf holds its shape when baked.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the loaf and sauce brown.
Milk
Soaks the crumbs and keeps the loaf moist during baking.
Mixed nuts
Provide body, fat and a crumbly texture to the loaf.
Celery
Supplies bulk, moisture and the main vegetable flavour of the loaf.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the cooked butter.

The step that matters

Adding the hot milk to the sauce. Cooking flour in butter forms a roux whose starch then absorbs liquid evenly. Adding the hot milk slowly while stirring keeps the sauce smooth instead of lumpy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, apple, butter, egg, milk, meat, pecans):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, apple, butter, egg, milk, meat, pecans. 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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