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Cream of Celery Soup

A creamy soup made from celery, potatoes, onion, milk, cream, and butter, garnished with parsley.

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 parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Cook the celery, potatoes, and onion in enough water to cover until tender.

  2. Mash the vegetables and add a little of the cooking water.

  3. Stir in the milk, cream, thickening, butter, salt, and pepper.

  4. Strain the mixture.

Serve

  1. Stir in chopped parsley before serving.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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 body of the soup.
Potatoes
Break down when mashed to give the soup a thicker, creamier texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture.
Milk
Adds liquid and mildness, softening the soup's body.

The step that matters

Adding the thickening. Thickening must be stirred in so it dissolves evenly; added in clumps or to a boiling mixture it can lump, leaving the soup unevenly textured.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, potato, butter, milk, cream, pepper, parsley. 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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