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Soup

Cream and Celery Soup

A creamy soup made with celery, onions, milk, stock, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 and Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Simmer the cold water and celery for 3 hours.

  2. Cut the celery.

  3. Cook the celery until tender.

  4. Strain the celery through a sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Steep the milk with the onions and mace.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Mix in the flour.

  3. Stir in the milk.

  4. Add the stock.

  5. Allow it to boil for 2 minutes.

  6. Pour the mixture over the cream in the tureen.

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.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Flour
Thickens the soup into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce when cooked with the butter.
Butter
Forms the roux with the flour and adds richness to the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the soup base.
Celery
Provides the main celery flavour and body once simmered and strained.
White stock
Supplies savoury depth as the liquid that carries the soup's flavour.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour and butter before adding the milk. Flour must be cooked briefly in the melted butter to form a roux; if the milk or stock goes in too early, the flour stays raw and the soup can turn lumpy and taste pasty. Stirring steadily as liquid is added keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

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