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Celery Soup

A soup made from celery, stock, water, sugar, salt, nutmeg, and cream or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,331 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Chop the celery into small pieces.

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine the chopped celery, salt, nutmeg, sugar, strong stock, and boiling water.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Add the cream or milk and heat through without boiling.

  4. Blend the soup until smooth and serve hot.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,331 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Celery + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,863 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Nutmeg + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Nutmeg and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 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
Forms the bulk of the soup and gives it its main flavour and body.
Strong stock
Adds savoury depth as the liquid the celery simmers in.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Add the cream or milk and heat through without boiling. Boiling dairy can cause it to curdle or separate and make the soup grainy. Gentle heating keeps the cream or milk smooth and evenly blended into the soup.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (nutmeg, sugar, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against nutmeg, sugar, 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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