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Celery Soup

A soup made from celery simmered in beef stock, thickened with flour and butter, optionally finished with sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the celery in beef stock with onion, salt, pepper, and parsley for about 1 hour.

  2. Strain the mixture.

Finish the soup

  1. In a separate pot, heat the milk and thicken it with flour and creamed butter.

  2. Add the strained mixture to the thickened milk along with 1 cup of boiled celery.

  3. If desired, stir in sweet cream 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.

  1. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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 as it simmers in the stock.
Butter
Enriches the thickened milk and adds a rich, smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, body-rich base when cooked with the butter.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the soup, mellowed by the thickening.
Beef stock
Carries the celery's flavor and adds savory depth during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk with flour and butter. Flour must be cooked smoothly into the butter and milk; if it is added lumpy or left under-heated, the soup stays grainy or tastes raw-floury.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Garlicfits about as well

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