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Cream of Celery Soup

A creamy soup made with celery, milk, rice, and broth, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cream of Celery Soup

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Boil the chopped celery in the milk.

  2. Add the rice and cook slowly until the celery is tender and the rice is cooked.

Finish the soup

  1. Rub the mixture through a coarse sieve.

  2. Return to the pot and add more milk if too thick.

  3. Stir in the broth, salt, and pepper.

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

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

  2. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  4. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Celery + vealtop 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

Celery
Provides the main flavor and body of the soup as it softens and breaks down.
Milk
Forms the creamy base and adds richness and smoothness to the soup.
Rice
Cooks down to thicken the soup and give it a smooth, full texture.
Veal or chicken broth
Adds savory depth and thins the soup to its final consistency.

The step that matters

Cooking the rice slowly until fully tender. Rice that is undercooked stays grainy and will not blend smoothly when pressed through the sieve. Slow cooking also keeps the milk from scorching on the bottom of the pot, which would add a burnt flavor.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Turmericfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, rice, veal, pepper. 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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