Skip to main content
Main

Cream of Celery Soup

A creamy soup made from celery, stock, milk, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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

Prepare the celery

  1. Place the celery bits in a pot and cover with water.

  2. Stew until very tender, then sieve through a colander.

Make the cream base

  1. In a separate pan, cook the butter and flour together.

  2. Slowly pour in the hot milk with the baking soda dissolved in it.

  3. Stir the mixture until thick and smooth.

Combine and serve

  1. Gradually add the celery and stock while stirring constantly.

  2. Season with pepper and celery salt, then serve.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 flavor and body of the soup once stewed and sieved.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy base.
Milk
Supplies the creamy liquid that makes up the body of the soup.
Veal or white stock
Adds savory depth and liquid to thin the soup and carry the celery flavor.
Baking soda
Added to the milk, it can help keep the milk from curdling as it heats.

The step that matters

Slowly pour in the hot milk. Adding hot milk to the roux slowly and while stirring keeps it smooth; pouring it in all at once can leave lumps of flour that do not blend out.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, milk, 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.

You might also like

Veal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCelery CroquettesCelery Croquettes16 recipesCelery Cream SoupCelery Cream Soup15 recipes