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Celery Soup

A light soup made from celery, stock, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Prepare the celery

  1. Scrape and cut the celery into 1-inch lengths.

  2. Cook the celery in a little hot water for 15 minutes, then drain.

Make the soup

  1. Add the stock and onion, and stew gently until the celery is very soft.

  2. Pulp the mixture through a colander into the soup.

  3. Season the soup and return it to the heat.

  4. Bring to a boil, then stir in the sugar.

  5. Pour into a tureen and add 1 cup of boiling milk thickened with the flour.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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, once softened and pulped, the body of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the boiling milk so it gives the soup a smooth, slightly thicker body.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy texture to the finished soup.
Soup stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the celery flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the flour-and-milk mixture to boiling milk. Flour mixed with cold milk and whisked into boiling milk disperses evenly; if poured in lumps or added to cold liquid it can clump and leave the soup grainy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, milk, pepper, sugar, flour. 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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