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Cream of Celery Soup

A creamy soup made with rice, milk, celery, stock, and seasonings.

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: 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 ↓

Cream of Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Boil the rice in the milk until it can pass through a sieve.

  2. Strain the rice milk and return it to the pot.

Cook and season

  1. Add the grated celery and stock to the rice milk.

  2. Boil until the celery is tender.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg 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.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  5. Rice + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,169 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rice
Breaks down during boiling and thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy body.
Milk
Forms the creamy base and, with the rice, gives the soup its body and richness.
Celery
Provides the main vegetable flavour and softens to a tender texture as it simmers.
Stock
Adds savoury depth so the soup tastes fuller than milk and celery alone.

The step that matters

Boil the rice in the milk until it can pass through a sieve. Rice starch only thickens the milk once the grains have softened fully and broken down. Undercooked grains stay gritty and will not pass through the sieve, leaving the soup coarse and uneven.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, celery, beef, pepper):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, celery, beef, pepper. 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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