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Cream of Celery Soup

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Cream of Celery Soup

Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Cream of Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Rinse the rice in cold water and place it in a thick saucepan with ½ quart of milk and 1 teaspoon of salt.

  2. Wash the celery and grate the white stalks, adding them to the milk to cover.

  3. Combine the grated celery with the rice and simmer until the rice is tender enough to pass through a sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the rice to the saucepan and gradually stir in the chicken or veal broth.

  2. If the soup is not creamy enough, add more milk.

  3. Heat the soup until scalding hot.

  4. Season with salt, white pepper, and a pinch of grated nutmeg.

  5. 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. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

  3. Celery + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,331 recipes

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

  4. Rice + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,169 recipes

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

  5. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Breaks down when simmered and passed through a sieve, thickening the soup into a smooth body.
Celery
Gives the soup its main flavour and aroma as it softens in the milk.
Milk
Adds creaminess and richness, and can be added to adjust the consistency.
Chicken or veal broth
Forms the savoury liquid base that carries the flavour of the soup.

The step that matters

Simmering the rice and celery until tender enough to pass through a sieve. Starch from the rice only thickens the soup smoothly when it is fully softened; undercooked grains stay gritty after sieving and the body comes out uneven.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, milk, rice, celery, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, milk, rice, celery, nutmeg. 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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