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Cream of Celery Soup

A creamy soup made from celery, milk, butter, flour, and water, served with toasted crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Cream of Celery Soup

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cream of Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Wash and scrape the celery.

  2. Cut the celery into small pieces.

  3. Add the celery to boiling water and cook gently until very soft, adding more water if necessary.

Make the sauce

  1. In a double boiler, scald the milk.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  3. Add the flour and cook until it bubbles.

  4. Pour in the scalded milk and cook until thickened, stirring constantly.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the cooked celery and water to the sauce.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Serve with toasted crackers.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Celery + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

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

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

Celery
Provides the main flavour and, once cooked soft and strained, the body of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce as it cooks and bubbles.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the soup and thickens into the sauce with the flour.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and cooks with the flour to form the base of the sauce.

The step that matters

Pour in the scalded milk and cook until thickened, stirring constantly. Flour thickens liquid only when its starch granules swell in heat while being dispersed. Constant stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the pan bottom, giving a smooth sauce.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, butter. 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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