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Garnish, Celery Sauce For
Wash two heads of celery, scald and drain, and cut them into pieces two inches long. Lay these in a stewpan with as much fast-boiling water as will cover them entirely, add one onion, one piece of sugar, one bay-leaf, a little salt and pepper, simmer till tender, then thicken the sauce with flour, and stir in a cupful of milk. This may be used as garnish for boiled fowls, etc. Time, half an hour to simmer the celery. Sufficient, two heads and a half-pint of sauce for one large fowl. Probable cost, 2d. per head.
A Victorian celery garnish that doubles as a sauce: the celery is stewed until tender and the cooking liquid becomes the sauce. The whole thing hinges on not drowning the celery in water you then have to thicken.
- Use little water"As much fast-boiling water as will cover them" is easily half a litre if the pan is wide. Choose a narrow pan so the celery is just covered, or reduce the liquid hard before thickening, otherwise the half-pint of sauce the recipe promises will be thin and washy.
- Two heads of celeryVictorian celery was generally trench-grown and blanched paler than most modern celery, and heads were probably smaller. Two modern heads gives a great deal; one large head, trimmed of leaves and the coarsest outer ribs, is likely closer to the intended quantity.
- "Scald and drain"A brief blanch in boiling water, a minute or two, to take the raw edge off. Refresh in cold water if you want the pieces to stay pale rather than continuing to soften.
- "One piece of sugar"A lump of sugar, whether cut from a loaf or a manufactured cube, on the order of a teaspoon. It is a seasoning quantity rather than enough to sweeten the sauce.
- ThickeningNo quantity is given. For a half-pint of sauce, work about 15 g each of butter and flour into a paste and whisk it into the simmering liquid in pieces, or cook a plain roux separately and add the strained celery liquor to it. Let it bubble two or three minutes to lose the raw flour taste before the milk goes in.
- The milk goes in lastAdd the cupful of milk off a hard boil and warm it through only. Boiled milk in a flour sauce catches on the pan base and gives the sauce a scalded flavour that celery does nothing to hide.
- TimingHalf an hour of simmering suits thick winter celery; modern celery is more tender and may be done in 12 to 15 minutes. Test with a knife tip and stop while the pieces still hold their shape, since they are meant to sit round the fowl as garnish.
- YieldAs written, enough sauce and garnish for one large boiled chicken, four to six servings. Strain out the onion and bay leaf before serving.
Celery sauce belongs to the long British tradition of pairing boiled poultry with a pale, mild, flour-thickened sauce — bread sauce, egg sauce, oyster sauce and celery sauce all served to give moisture and savour to a bird cooked in water. Celery was a valued winter vegetable in nineteenth-century Britain, grown in trenches and earthed up to blanch the stalks, and it was sold and priced by the head, as here, rather than by weight; the season for a dish like this ran from autumn through to early spring. The instruction to use the celery as garnish as well as sauce fits the service style of the period, when a boiled fowl was likely to come to table surrounded by its accompaniments rather than plated individually; the two-inch lengths would lie neatly around the dish.