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Celery White Soup

A creamy soup made with rice, milk, celery, and stock, seasoned with salt and cayenne pepper.

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 White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the rice in the milk until it can pass through a sieve.

  2. Grate the white parts of the celery on a coarse grater.

Make the soup

  1. Add the grated celery to the strained rice-milk.

  2. Stir in the strong white stock and bring to a boil.

  3. Cook until the celery is perfectly tender.

  4. Season with salt and cayenne pepper.

Finish

  1. If using, substitute 1 pint of cream for the same quantity of milk before serving.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Softens as it simmers in milk, breaking down so it thickens the soup and gives it body.
Milk
Forms the creamy base and, with the rice, gives the soup a smooth, rich body.
Celery
Provides the main flavour and, once tender, a soft texture in the soup.
Strong white stock
Adds savoury depth and liquid that carries the flavours of the other ingredients.

The step that matters

Boiling the rice in the milk. Milk contains sugars and proteins that scorch easily on the base of a pan. Stirring and keeping the heat moderate prevents burning while the rice softens enough to pass through a sieve.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Celerythe original
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Cinnamonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, veal, 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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