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Cream of Celery Soup

A creamy soup made from celery, onion, milk, butter, flour, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 celery base

  1. Break celery into one-inch pieces.

  2. Pound the celery in a mortar.

  3. Cook celery with onion and milk in a double boiler for 20 minutes.

  4. Remove the onion.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the butter in a pan.

  2. Add flour and seasonings.

  3. Gradually add 2/3 cup of the celery broth.

  4. Add the rest of the broth and the cream.

  5. Cook until smooth and slightly thickened.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately.

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. Butter + milktop 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Fat that enriches the flavor and helps form the roux with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the soup by forming a roux with the butter and absorbing liquid.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that gives the soup its creamy body.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, giving the soup a fuller texture.
Celery
Provides the main vegetable flavor and, once cooked, body to the soup.

The step that matters

Gradually add 2/3 cup of the celery broth. Adding liquid slowly to the butter and flour mixture lets the starch disperse evenly, preventing lumps and producing a smooth sauce.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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