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Cream of Celery Soup

A thick soup made with celery, ham, stock, milk, and butter, seasoned with onion, salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Cream of Celery Soup

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 ↓

Cream of Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut the outer stalks of celery into very small dice.

  2. Boil the diced celery in water for 5 minutes.

  3. Drain the celery.

Make the soup

  1. Boil the soup stock with onions and ham.

  2. In a saucepan, stir together the butter and flour.

  3. Add the butter and flour mixture to the stock.

  4. Once it boils and thickens, strain it into another saucepan.

  5. Add the boiled celery.

  6. Cook for over 30 minutes until done.

Finish and serve

  1. Heat the milk.

  2. Add the heated milk to the soup along with salt, pepper, and minced green celery leaf or parsley.

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

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

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

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 vegetable flavour and body of the soup.
Flour
Combined with butter to form a roux that thickens the soup.
Butter
Enriches the flavour and, with flour, helps thicken the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and smoothness to the finished soup.
Soup stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour mixture to the stock. Flour must be cooked into the butter and liquid so it thickens smoothly. Added to hot stock with stirring, it dissolves evenly; added cold or unstirred, it can form lumps.

Swap the onion

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

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

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