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Cream of Celery Soup

A creamy soup made from stewed celery, stock, and sweet cream, thickened with flour and seasoned with salt, pepper, and optional onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Cream of Celery Soup

Why it works: Celery and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cream of Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Wash, scrape, and cut the celery into short lengths.

  2. Cover with water and stew until very soft, then strain through a colander.

Make the soup

  1. Whip the cream for a few moments and skim off 1 cup of the froth.

  2. Add the remaining cream, baking soda, and soup stock to the creamed celery and heat.

  3. When it approaches boiling, thicken with the flour mixed in a little cold milk.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, adjusting to taste.

  5. If the stock is not flavored with onion, add a slice to the soup after thickening and let it stand briefly.

Serve

  1. Serve in bouillon cups with a teaspoon of frothed cream on each.

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. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 flavor and, once stewed and strained, the body of the soup.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it body.
White stock
Supplies the liquid base and savory flavor of the soup.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour. Flour mixed in cold milk before it goes into the hot soup disperses evenly; added dry or to a boiling mixture it clumps and leaves a grainy texture. Heating just to near boiling lets the starch thicken smoothly.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, cream, flour, milk, white pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, cream, flour, milk, white 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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