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Cream and Celery Soup

A soup of celery, onions, milk, and white stock, thickened with flour and butter, seasoned with mace, pepper, salt, herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Hamilton, Margaret · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 and Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine 1 quart cold water with 1 head of celery and simmer for 3 hours.

  2. Add 1 pint of white stock.

  3. Add 1 oz. of flour.

  4. Add 2 onions, 1 oz. butter, and mace.

  5. Season with a few peppercorns, salt, parsley, thyme, and bay leaf.

  6. Steep the milk with onion and mace.

Strain and thicken

  1. Cut celery into pieces and cook until tender.

  2. Sieve the celery mixture.

  3. Melt butter in a saucepan.

  4. Mix flour into the melted butter.

  5. Stir in the milk.

  6. Add the stock and boil for two minutes.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over cream in the tureen.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

199Calories
10 gProtein
8 gFat
23 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 5 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Waternot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Hamilton, Margaret. 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. See the original page.

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. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  3. Celery + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Milk + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  5. Milk + oniontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Provides the main flavour and, once cooked and sieved, the body of the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a smooth, mellow richness to the finished soup.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells when heated with the butter and stock.
Butter (in the method)
Carries flavour and, melted with the flour, forms the base that helps thicken the soup.
White stock
Serves as the main liquid, giving the soup its savoury base.
Onions
Contribute aroma and savoury sweetness as they cook into the soup.

The step that matters

Mixing flour into the melted butter. Stirring the flour into the butter coats each starch granule in fat so it disperses evenly. Adding the liquid to a clumped flour mixture leaves lumps, and heating the starch in a well-blended mixture is what thickens the soup smoothly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, milk, onion. 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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