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Celery Soup

A veal and celery soup thickened with cream and corn starch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place half of the celery in a pot with the veal and water. Cover the pot.

  2. Boil for 3 hours, until the meat is tender.

  3. Strain the broth.

  4. Return the broth to the pot.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the remaining celery.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Boil for 20 minutes.

  4. Stir the corn starch into the cream. Add the mixture to the soup.

  5. Boil for an additional 10 minutes.

  6. Serve with fried toast.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Celery + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together920 recipes

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

  3. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Celery + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,863 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Veal + celerytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,336 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Gives the broth its meaty body and rich flavor as it simmers.
Celery
Provides the main aromatic flavor of the soup, both in the broth and added later.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished soup.
Corn starch
Thickens the cream mixture so the soup becomes smoother and slightly more body.

The step that matters

Stir the corn starch into the cream before adding it to the soup. Corn starch clumps if it is added directly to hot liquid. Mixing it into the cold cream first disperses the starch evenly, so the soup thickens smoothly rather than becoming lumpy.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, cream, corn, pepper):

  1. Celerythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, cream, corn, pepper. 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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