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Cream of Celery Soup

A creamy soup made with celery, chicken stock, tapioca, and cream, seasoned with salt and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Cream of Celery Soup

Why it works: Chicken and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,375 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Cream of Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine the chicken stock and celery.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add the soaked tapioca and cook until the celery is tender.

  4. Strain the mixture through a sieve into a clean pot.

Finish

  1. Stir in the cream, salt, and white pepper to taste.

  2. If the soup is not thick enough, dissolve a little cornstarch in cream and add it to the soup.

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.

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.

  1. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + white peppertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together853 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

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

  4. Chicken + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Cream + white peppertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,439 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Provides the main flavor and body of the soup.
Tapioca
Thickens the soup as it cooks, giving it a smoother body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture.
Chicken stock
Forms the savory liquid base that carries the celery flavor.

The step that matters

Thickening with tapioca. Tapioca starch thickens only when it is fully hydrated and heated, so it must be soaked beforehand and cooked long enough to gelatinize. Undercooked starch leaves the soup thin and gritty.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, celery, cream):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, celery, 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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