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Celery Soup

A hearty soup made with celery, ham, milk, and corn starch, served over diced fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Chop the ham, onion, and celery.

  2. Cover with water in a large pot.

  3. Stew early in the day until the meat is tender.

  4. Reduce the liquid by half.

  5. Strain the mixture.

  6. Add the chopped celery and cook until soft.

  7. Rub the mixture through a colander.

  8. Return it to the pot with the broth.

Finish the soup

  1. Season with salt, pepper, and sugar.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Skim off any foam.

  4. Stir in the milk.

  5. Heat through.

  6. Mix the corn starch with a little water. Add to the soup while stirring continuously.

  7. Boil again.

  8. Stir in the butter until melted.

Serve

  1. Serve over the diced fried bread in a tureen.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Celery + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together920 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Provides the main flavor and, once cooked and pureed, the body of the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the soup's flavor.
Corn starch
Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it a smooth, velvety texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Ham
Lends savory, salty depth to the broth as it stews.

The step that matters

Add the corn starch slurry while stirring. Starch must be dispersed in a little cold water first and stirred into hot liquid; added in one lump or left unstirred, it clumps and the soup stays lumpy and uneven in thickness.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, milk, corn, butter, sugar, onion, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, milk, corn, butter, sugar, onion, bread. 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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