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Cream of Celery Soup

A soup made from boiled celery, milk, seasoning, flour, parsley, and served with croutons.

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 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 of Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and clean the celery, then cut it into ½ inch pieces, using both leaves and stalks.

Make the soup

  1. Boil the celery in enough water to cover for 30 minutes.

  2. Add an equal amount of milk to the boiling water.

  3. Season to taste.

  4. Add flour to thicken until it reaches the consistency of a thin white sauce.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup with croutons.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 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).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 softens in the boiling water.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a smooth, rich texture to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells when heated, giving a sauce-like body.

The step that matters

Add flour to thicken. Flour starch only thickens properly when it is well mixed into the liquid and heated, which swells the starch granules. Adding it too quickly or without stirring can leave lumps and an uneven texture.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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