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Celery Soup

A soup made from celery, water, milk, onion, butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Wash and scrape the celery.

  2. Cut the celery into ½ inch pieces.

  3. Cook the celery in 2 cups of boiling salted water until soft.

Make the soup

  1. Cook the onion with the milk for 10 minutes in a double boiler.

  2. Add the cooked onion and milk to the celery.

  3. Rub the mixture through a strainer.

  4. Return the strained mixture to the heat.

  5. Cook the butter and flour together in a separate pan.

  6. Stir the butter-flour mixture into the boiling soup.

  7. Add salt and pepper.

  8. Boil for 5 minutes.

  9. Strain into a 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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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 + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Forms the main body and flavor of the soup as it cooks down and is pureed.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, softening the soup's texture.
Butter and flour
Cooked together into a roux, they thicken the soup and give it body.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter-flour mixture into the boiling soup. Flour clumps if added raw or unevenly. Cooking it with butter first and stirring it in steadily to boiling liquid lets the starch disperse and thicken smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

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

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