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Cream of Celery

A creamy celery soup made with milk, butter, and flour paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Cream of Celery

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cream of Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Cut the outer stalks of the celery into small pieces.

  2. Boil the celery in water until tender, keeping it covered.

  3. Once tender, strain the celery through a gravy strainer.

Finish the soup

  1. Add 1¼ cups of milk, 1 teaspoon of butter, and salt to taste.

  2. Slowly stir in a little flour paste to thicken.

  3. Let it boil briefly and serve hot.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Celery + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

Butter and flour 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
Forms the main body and flavour of the soup once boiled and strained.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body to the liquid.
Flour paste
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the soup a smoother texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour paste. Flour thickens only when heated, and added in lumps or all at once it clumps instead of blending. Stir it in slowly while the liquid is warm, then boil briefly so the starch fully swells and the soup thickens evenly.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, 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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