Celery Sauce
One head of celery; one pint of milk; two tablespoons of flour; four tablespoons of butter; salt and pepper to taste. Cut the celery fine, and place it in a saucepan with just enough water to cover; then cover the pan, and simmer gently. When the celery has boiled an hour, mix the butter and flour together and add them to the celery, with the milk, salt and pepper. Boil ten minutes, stirring continually, and serve.
A plain white sauce built on stewed celery, of the sort meant to be ladled over boiled fowl. Two things need attention: the amount of cooking water left in the pan, and the heat once the milk goes in.
- The hinge: don't drown it"Just enough water to cover" is the whole instruction. If you start with more, an hour of covered simmering leaves a pan of celery broth and the finished sauce will be thin and watery. Use a small pan, keep the lid on, and check that the liquid has reduced to a few spoonfuls before the milk goes in.
- "One head of celery"In this period a head means the entire bunch as it is sold, not a single rib. Modern bunches run large; about 3/4 lb of trimmed ribs, roughly 3 cups chopped, is in the right range. Reserve the pale inner ribs and leaves, which carry the most flavour.
- An hour is longAn hour of simmering was intended to reduce the celery to near-pulp so it would melt into the sauce; the strings in older celery needed it. Today 25 to 35 minutes will get chopped celery quite soft. If you want the smooth sauce the original produces, cook it the full hour or purée it after cooking.
- Butter and flourFour tablespoons of butter to two of flour is a beurre manié, not a roux — worked together cold into a paste and whisked into the hot liquid in small pieces. The extra butter is enrichment, and the sauce will be rich; three tablespoons is enough if you prefer it leaner.
- Milk and the second boil"Boil ten minutes, stirring continually" is better read as a steady simmer. A hard boil with milk and this much butter will catch on the bottom and may break the sauce. Stir constantly for the full ten minutes to cook out the raw flour taste.
- SeasoningCelery cooked this long turns sweet and mild rather than assertive, and the sauce takes more salt than expected. White pepper keeps the colour clean; a scrape of nutmeg is the period-appropriate addition if you want one.
- Yield and servingSomewhat over a pint, since a full pint of milk goes in on top of the celery and its cooking liquid; enough for roughly six servings. It was intended for boiled or roast poultry, turkey in particular, and it is also good on poached white fish.
Celery sauce belonged to the standard repertoire of English and American white sauces in the nineteenth century, and its usual job was to accompany boiled fowl or turkey — a pairing so fixed that cookbooks of the era often mention the sauce and the bird in the same breath. Celery had long been a troublesome crop, needing trenching and blanching to keep the stalks pale and tender, though by the time this book appeared it was widely and cheaply grown. The Butterick Publishing Company, better known for dress patterns and The Delineator, issued its cook book to the same broad middle-class household audience, and the sauces section holds a small vocabulary of milk-based sauces, each one a variation on flour, butter and one flavouring, ready to dress an otherwise plain boiled joint or bird.