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Cream of Celery Soup

A creamy soup made from celery, stock, milk, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 celery base

  1. Cook the chopped celery in boiling water for 15 minutes.

  2. Add the chicken or veal stock.

  3. Boil for another 15 minutes.

  4. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

Finish the soup

  1. Scald the slice of onion in the milk.

  2. Remove the onion.

  3. Add the milk to the stock.

  4. Bind the soup with butter and flour.

  5. Season with salt and pepper.

  6. Optionally, add cream or a spoonful of whipped cream to each cup 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. 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. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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 simmers and is strained.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the stock.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour in the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter, giving it body.

The step that matters

Binding the soup with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked into the butter and stirred smoothly into the hot liquid, otherwise it clumps and the soup stays grainy and uneven in texture.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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