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Soup

Celery Soup

A soup made with boiled rice, celery, milk, butter, salt, pepper, and beaten eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

  1. Boil the rice and celery separately until tender.

  2. Strain the rice and celery, then combine them in a pot.

  3. Add the milk and bring to a boil.

  4. Season with butter, coarse sea salt, and pepper to taste.

  5. Before serving, stir in the two well-beaten eggs.

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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs stirred in at the end give the soup a light, slightly thickened body.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and creamy richness that carries the rice and celery.
Rice
Cooked and combined into the soup, it adds body and thickens the broth.
Celery
Main vegetable that gives the soup its flavor and tender pieces.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten eggs before serving. Eggs thicken when heated gently but can curdle or scramble if the soup is at a hard boil. Add them off the heat or at low heat, stirring steadily, so the soup turns smooth rather than grainy.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, egg, milk, butter, 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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