Name: Celery Soup with Stock
Ingredients: 6 heads of celery, white part only, cut into small pieces; 2 quarts white stock; ¼ pound lean ham; 2 ounces butter; 1 tablespoon flour; a few teaspoons cream; hard crackers, for serving; salt and pepper, to taste

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 Soup with Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the celery pieces in the white stock with the ham and butter for 1 hour.
Drain the mixture through a sieve and return the liquid to the pan.
Thicken the soup with the flour and stir in the cream carefully.
Season to taste.
Serve with hard crackers added 5 minutes before serving.

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.

Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,905 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

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: Provides the main flavour and body of the soup as it simmers and softens.
Butter: Adds richness and carries flavour in the soup.
Flour: Thickens the soup liquid so it has a fuller body.
Cream: Adds smoothness and richness to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with the flour. Flour must be cooked in hot liquid long enough to swell and thicken evenly; adding it raw or in clumps leaves lumps and a floury taste.

Swap the celery

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

Nutmegfits better
Parsleyfits about as well
Tarragonfits about as well
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, flour, cream, 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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Celery Soup with Stock