Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Cream of Celery
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the celery
Cut the tops off the celery and simmer gently in enough water to cover with 1 teaspoon of salt until tender.
Cut the celery stalks into 1-inch pieces and boil in 1 pint of water until tender.
Boil 2 tablespoons of rice in water until nearly done, then add to the celery soup and boil for a few minutes.
Strain the celery tops and add the liquid to the soup pot.
Make the cream base
In a double boiler, boil 1 quart of milk and thicken with 1 scant tablespoon of flour blended with 1 tablespoon of butter.
Add another teaspoon of salt to the milk mixture, then combine with the soup and let it boil for just a second.
Serve
Place ½ cup of whipped cream in the bottom of a tureen, pour the hot soup over it, and serve with crackers.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Celery + ricetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,169 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Provides the main flavour and the body of the soup as it softens and cooks down.
- Milk
- Forms the creamy base of the soup and gives it a smooth, rich texture.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk so the soup becomes smooth and lightly body-rich rather than watery.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps blend the flour smoothly into the milk.
- Rice
- Adds body and a little starch, helping the soup feel thicker and more substantial.
- Whipped cream
- Adds a cool, rich layer that softens the hot soup's texture when poured over it.
The step that matters
Thickening the milk with flour and butter. Flour must be fully blended with butter before it meets the hot milk, or it clumps. Once cooked, the starch thickens the milk into a smooth, even base.
Swap the celery
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, flour, butter, cream):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Turmericfits better
- Celerythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, flour, butter, cream. 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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