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Celery Soup

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the vegetables

  1. Combine celery, potato, and onion with enough water to cover in a pot and cook until tender.

  2. Run the cooked mixture through a sieve to create a smooth base.

Make the milk sauce

  1. Melt butter in a separate saucepan.

  2. Stir in flour to make a roux.

  3. Gradually add milk to the roux, stirring constantly until thickened.

Finish the soup

  1. Combine the milk mixture with the vegetable puree and season with salt and pepper.

  2. If desired, stir in cooked rice to thicken the soup further.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Celery + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  4. Potato + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together851 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Provides the main vegetable flavour and body of the soup.
Potato
Breaks down during cooking to add starch and body to the puree.
Onion
Adds savoury aromatic flavour as it softens in the pot.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid that the roux thickens into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Carries flavour and combines with flour to form the roux.
Flour
Thickens the milk by forming a roux with the melted butter.

The step that matters

Adding milk to the roux. Add the milk gradually while stirring constantly so the starch in the flour hydrates evenly. Pouring it in all at once can cause lumps that are hard to smooth out.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, potato, milk, butter, flour, pepper, rice. 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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