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Celery Soup

A soup made with veal stock or chicken broth, milk, rice, celery, salt, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rinse the rice.

  2. Add the rinsed rice to the milk in a pot.

  3. Place the pot on the back of the stove to simmer.

  4. Grate the roots and white parts of the celery.

  5. Add the grated celery to the milk.

Cook and strain

  1. Cook until the rice is tender.

  2. Add more milk if necessary.

  3. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Combine the strained mixture with the strained stock.

  5. Season with salt and white pepper to taste.

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. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Celery + white peppertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together853 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Veal + celerytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,336 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Veal + ricetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,119 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Breaks down during simmering to thicken the soup body.
Milk
Provides creaminess and a mild, rich base for the soup.
Celery
Supplies the main flavor and aroma of the soup.
Veal stock or chicken broth
Adds savory depth and liquid to thin the soup.

The step that matters

Cook until the rice is tender. Rice must fully soften so the strained soup is smooth and thick; undercooked grains leave a gritty texture and starch that is not fully gelatinized. Simmering gently keeps the milk from scorching or boiling over.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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