Skip to main content
Main

Celery Soup

A soup made from celery, mashed potatoes, nut butter, and water, seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,047 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Cut the celery into finger-length pieces.

  2. Cook the celery in boiling water until very tender.

Make the soup

  1. Sift the cooked celery through a colander.

  2. Place the celery back on the stove and add the mashed potatoes.

  3. Reheat the mixture and season with nut butter and salt.

  4. Add enough water to achieve the desired thickness and serve.

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

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

  2. Potato + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together337 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Celery + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 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
Forms the main body and flavor of the soup as it is cooked down and sifted.
Mashed potatoes
Adds body and thickness, making the soup creamier and more substantial.
Nut butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the soup a smoother mouthfeel and nutty flavor.

The step that matters

Sifting the cooked celery through a colander. Celery cooked until very tender breaks down easily, and pressing it through a colander removes fibrous strands, giving the soup a smooth texture before the potatoes are added.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, almond. 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.

More celery soup recipes

Cream 7Creamy 3Spanish 3 See all 210 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesAlmond SoupAlmond Soup60 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipes