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Celery Cream Soup

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

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

Celery Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables and milk

  1. Boil the celery in 1 pint of water for 30 to 45 minutes.

  2. In a separate pot, boil the mace, onion, and milk together.

Thicken the soup

  1. Mix the flour with 2 tablespoons of cold milk.

  2. Add the mixture to the boiling milk.

  3. Stir in the butter.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the soup.

  2. Serve immediately.

  3. Add 1 cup of whipped cream when 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.

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

Celery
Provides the main flavour and the bulk of the soup.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base of the soup and carries its flavour.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Onion
Adds a savoury aroma that is infused into the milk.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a light, soft texture when served on top.

The step that matters

Add the mixture to the boiling milk. Flour mixed into cold milk first disperses evenly, so it does not clump when added to hot liquid. Stirring as it heats lets the starch swell and thicken the soup smoothly.

Swap the mace

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

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

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