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Cream of Celery Soup

A creamy soup made with celery, milk, flour, and butter, finished with optional whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Cream of Celery Soup

Why it works: Pepper and celery 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

  1. Combine milk, flour, cornstarch, red pepper, onion, and mace in a double boiler and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the boiled and mashed celery, which was cooked in salted water.

  3. Blend well and strain the mixture.

  4. Stir in the butter over low heat until blended.

Serve

  1. Add whipped cream just before serving in a hot tureen.

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. Pepper + celerytop 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. Onion + celerytop 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. Pepper + oniontop 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 liquid base of the soup and gives it a creamy body.
Flour
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the soup body.
Cornstarch
Adds thickening power so the soup becomes smooth and velvety.
Celery
Provides the main flavor and, once mashed, the soup's bulk and texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Stir in the butter over low heat. High heat can cause the fat to separate and the dairy to scorch or curdle, leaving the soup greasy or grainy. Gentle heat lets the butter blend smoothly into the thickened base.

Swap the mace

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

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

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