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Celery Soup

A soup made from turkey or chicken bones, celery tops, flour, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Place turkey or chicken bones in a pot with cold water and cook until the strength is extracted.

  2. Skim out the bones.

  3. Boil a handful of dried celery tops in 2 cups of water in a separate dish.

Finish the soup

  1. Stir 2 tablespoons of flour and 2 tablespoons of butter over heat in a pan until smooth.

  2. Add the flour mixture and the celery water to the soup.

  3. Season to taste.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Turkey + celerytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together431 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Turkey + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together963 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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

Turkey or chicken bones
Release flavour and body into the broth as they simmer.
Dried celery tops
Add concentrated celery aroma to the water they steep in.
Flour
Thickens the soup by swelling in hot liquid once cooked in butter.
Butter
Carries flavour and, with flour, forms a roux that thickens the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour and butter until smooth. Cooking flour in fat before adding liquid coats the starch granules so they disperse rather than clump. Lumps form if the roux is added too quickly or not stirred smooth.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, flour, butter. 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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