Skip to main content
Soup

Cream of Celery

A creamy soup made from boiled celery, milk, butter, flour, egg yolks, and fried stale bread cubes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Cream of Celery

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Wash and clean the celery, removing all green parts, and cut it into small pieces.

  2. Place the celery in a saucepan and add enough cold water to cover it.

  3. Boil the celery for 1 hour, adding hot water as needed to keep it covered.

  4. Strain the water off the celery.

Make the soup

  1. In another saucepan, melt the butter and mix it with the flour.

  2. Boil the milk and slowly stir in the butter and flour mixture until well combined.

  3. Pour the celery into the milk mixture and stir until it comes to a boil.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and ground mace if desired.

  5. Strain the soup through a fine sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the egg yolks.

  2. Quickly mix the beaten yolks into the soup before serving.

  3. Serve with fried stale bread cubes.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 flavor and, once boiled and strained, body for the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and is cooked with flour to form a roux that thickens the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter and stirred into the milk.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the soup and carries its smooth, rich texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the soup and add body and a silky texture when stirred in.

The step that matters

Mixing the egg yolks into the soup. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if added to very hot liquid. Mixing them in quickly off the heat, and not letting the soup boil again, keeps the texture smooth.

Swap the mace

The recipe marks mace as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, butter, flour, milk, pepper, egg, bread):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

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

You might also like

Indian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipesCream of Asparagus SoupCream of Asparagus Soup42 recipes