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Celery CoNSOMME

A clear celery consommé made by simmering celery in butter and clear soup, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 CoNSOMME

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook the celery

  1. Clean the celery and cut the stalks into 1-inch lengths.

  2. Cook the celery in enough butter to prevent burning for a few minutes until colored.

Simmer in soup

  1. Add 1 pint of clear soup and simmer for a few minutes.

  2. Stir in 1 quart more of the soup and skim off any floating fat.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then serve.

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. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Celery + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 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

Celery
Provides the main flavor and aroma of the consommé.
Butter
Fat that cooks the celery gently and carries its aroma, browning it lightly.
Clear soup
Forms the liquid base that the celery simmers in, adding savory depth.

The step that matters

Cooking the celery in butter until colored. Enough butter must be used to prevent burning. Burnt fat turns the flavor bitter and darkens the clear broth once the soup is added.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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