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Celery Soup

A light soup made with celery, water, milk, flour, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine chopped celery and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and cook until the celery is tender.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve to remove solids and return the liquid to the saucepan.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a small bowl, smooth the flour with a little milk, then add the remaining milk and mix well.

  2. Add the milk mixture to the saucepan and stir to thicken the soup.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste, then bring to a boil for a few minutes 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 + 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 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).

Flour and butter 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 flavour and body of the soup as it cooks down in water.
Flour
Thickens the milk and broth into a smooth, creamy soup as it heats.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the soup, mellowing its flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded, buttery flavour to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Smoothing the flour into the milk. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps, because its starch grains coat in lumps before they can disperse. Mixing it first with a little cold milk into a smooth paste lets the starch spread evenly, so the soup thickens without lumps.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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