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Soup

Celery Cream Soup

A creamy soup made with rice, celery, milk, stock, salt, cayenne pepper, and optional cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Celery Cream 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 ↓

Celery Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Boil the rice in the milk until it can be strained through a sieve.

  2. Grate the white part of the celery and add it to the strained rice milk.

  3. Add the strong white stock and bring to a boil until the celery is tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with salt and cayenne pepper, and serve.

  2. If cream is available, substitute 1 pint of cream for the same amount of milk.

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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Rice + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,169 recipes

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

  4. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Thickens the milk as it cooks and breaks down, giving the soup body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and adds richness and body to the soup.
Celery
Provides the main flavour and, once tender, adds fibre-based body to the soup.
Strong white stock
Adds savoury depth to the soup base.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving a smoother, silkier texture.

The step that matters

Bringing the celery to a boil until tender. Grated celery needs enough heat and time to soften fully; undercooked celery stays fibrous and tastes raw, while the rice-milk base can scorch if left unstirred on high heat.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, pepper, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, pepper, cream. 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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