Skip to main content
Main

Cream of Celery Soup

A veal and celery broth thickened with rice, flour, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Cream of Celery Soup

Why it works: Celery and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,169 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Celery Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Place the knuckle of veal in a large pot with cold water, celery, and salt.

  2. Boil for 2 hours.

  3. Add the uncooked rice and boil for 1 hour longer.

  4. Strain the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix the sweet cream with the flour, then add to the strained soup.

  2. Strain again, bring to a boil, and 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.

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 + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Celery + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,863 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Veal + celerytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,336 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

Veal knuckle
Gives the soup its meaty body and rich flavour as it simmers.
Celery
Provides the main vegetable flavour that defines the soup.
Uncooked rice
Breaks down during long simmering to thicken the soup slightly.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the finished soup.
Flour
Thickens the cream so it blends smoothly into the soup without lumps.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and flour mixture. Flour mixed into cream should be fully blended first so it disperses evenly; adding it directly to hot soup can clump. Boiling after adding helps the starch thicken the soup.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, rice, cream, flour):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, rice, cream, flour. 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.

You might also like

Rice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipes