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Cream of Celery Soup

A creamy soup made from boiled celery, onion, and mace, thickened with flour and butter, finished with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Make the soup base

  1. Boil the onion, celery, and mace in water for 30 to 40 minutes.

  2. Mix the flour with 2 tablespoons of cold milk and add to the boiling milk; cook for 10 minutes.

  3. Mash the boiled celery in the cooking water and stir into the boiling milk.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the butter and season with salt and pepper to taste.

  2. Strain the soup and serve immediately.

  3. Whip the cream and add it to the soup after it is in the serving bowl.

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. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the milk so the soup has body.
Celery
Provides the main flavour and, when mashed, thickens the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a light, cool texture when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Adding the flour mixture to the boiling milk. Flour mixed only with cold milk and then added to hot liquid can clump; blending it smoothly into cold milk first and stirring while the milk boils helps it disperse evenly and thicken the soup without lumps.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, celery, onion, 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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