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Cream of Celery Soup

A soup made from veal stock, celery, and a roux of flour, butter, and milk, seasoned with white pepper, sea salt, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Cream of Celery Soup

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

Make the stock

  1. Boil the veal shank and knuckle in 3 quarts of water for 4 hours until the meat is fully cooked.

  2. Strain the stock and let it cool overnight.

  3. Skim off the fat the next day.

Finish the soup

  1. Boil the chopped celery in 3 pints of water until tender.

  2. Combine the celery with the stock.

  3. Season with white pepper, coarse sea salt, and mace.

  4. Stir in the flour, butter, and milk.

  5. Bring to a boil.

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

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

  2. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Flour + buttertop 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).

Flour and butter 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

Veal shank and knuckle
Release gelatin and savory flavor into the stock as they simmer for hours.
Celery
Provides the main vegetable flavor and body of the soup.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the soup into a creamy consistency when cooked with the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and smoothing the thickened texture.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, softening the soup's flavor.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil after adding the flour, butter, and milk. Flour needs to be heated fully to thicken the liquid. Boiling activates its starch, but stirring constantly prevents lumps and milk scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the white pepper

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

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

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