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Cream of Celery Soup

A soup made with celery, stock, milk, flour, butter, and salt.

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: 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

Prepare the celery

  1. Wash the celery and cut it into 1‑inch lengths.

  2. Cook the celery in boiling water, slightly salted, for 45 minutes.

  3. Rinse the cooked celery through a colander.

Make the soup

  1. In a small saucepan, combine the butter and flour, stirring until it bubbles.

  2. Pour in the heated milk and stock, stirring until thick and smooth.

  3. Add the celery and season to taste.

  4. Reserve ½ cup of the celery before straining to add to the soup when 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.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Milk + celerytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

Flour and butter 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.
Flour
Thickens the soup with butter as a roux.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour in the roux.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a smooth, mellow body.
White stock
Forms the liquid base and adds savoury depth.

The step that matters

Making the roux and adding the liquid. Flour must cook briefly in butter until it bubbles, then the warm milk and stock should be added gradually while stirring. This keeps the flour dispersed so the soup thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the celery

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

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

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