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Cream-of-Celery Soup

A creamy soup made from celery, butter, flour, milk, cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the celery

  1. Cook the celery in boiling water until very soft.

  2. Strain the celery.

  3. Add the hot liquid.

Make the soup

  1. Make a white sauce by combining flour and butter.

  2. Cook the sauce until thick.

  3. Stir in the milk, cream, salt, and white pepper.

  4. Cook until well combined.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Flour
Thickens the white sauce so the soup becomes creamy and smooth.
Butter
Forms the fat base of the white sauce and adds richness to the soup.
Celery
Provides the main vegetable flavour and body of the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and mild sweetness, thinning the thickened sauce into a soup.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce until thick. Flour must be cooked in the hot fat until the raw starchy taste fades and the starch thickens. Stopping early leaves the soup pasty and floury-tasting, while the starch needs to be fully mixed with the fat before liquid is added.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, butter, flour, milk, 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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