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Cream of Celery Soup

A creamy soup made with celery, onion juice, milk, and butter, served with toasted squares.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 stock

  1. Cook the chopped celery in water for 20 minutes or until soft.

  2. Strain the celery through a fine strainer.

Make the soup

  1. Add the onion juice and strained celery stock to a pot and place on the stove.

  2. Mix the corn starch with a little milk until smooth.

  3. Add the remaining milk and blend with the soup.

  4. Heat the soup until it just comes to a boil.

  5. Add the butter and season with salt and pepper.

Serve

  1. Serve with small squares of dried toast.

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. Butter + milktop 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. Corn + celerytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together920 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  5. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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 once cooked and strained.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk and stock into a smooth, creamy soup when heated.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body to the soup, softening its flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Mix the corn starch with a little milk until smooth. Starch clumps if added dry or to hot liquid. Dispersing it in cold milk first lets the granules separate, so it thickens evenly when the soup is heated.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, corn, milk, pepper, celery):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, corn, milk, pepper, celery. 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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