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Soup

Cream of Celery Soup

A creamy soup made from celery, milk, butter, flour, onion, and seasonings.

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: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cream of Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the celery

  1. Wash the celery, cut it into small pieces, and cook it with the onion in boiling salted water until tender.

  2. Mash the mixture through a strainer.

Make the soup

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Make a white sauce by melting the butter, adding the flour, salt, and pepper, then gradually adding 1 cup of the hot milk, cooking for 10 minutes.

  3. Add the white sauce to the milk in the double boiler.

  4. Stir in the strained celery and celery stock, and cook for 5 minutes.

  5. Serve with crisp crackers.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Provides the main flavour and body of the soup once cooked and strained.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the soup and gives it a creamy texture.
Butter
Fat that cooks with the flour to form the white sauce, adding richness.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a white sauce, giving the soup body.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to the butter. Flour must be cooked in melted butter before liquid is added, so it thickens smoothly without lumps and loses its raw taste. Adding hot milk gradually keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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