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Creamed Celery Soup

A creamy soup made from celery, milk, onion, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Creamed Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Cook the chopped celery until tender.

  2. Press the cooked celery through a fine sieve to obtain 1 pint of liquid and pulp.

Make the soup

  1. Scald the milk with the onion slices.

  2. Melt the flour and salt in a pot. Add pepper if desired.

  3. Stir in the celery mixture. Cook until boiling.

  4. Strain the mixture into the scalded milk.

  5. Serve immediately.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Melted with fat to form a roux that thickens the soup into a creamy body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that gives the soup its creamy, smooth texture.
Celery
Provides the main vegetable flavour and, as pulp, body to the soup.

The step that matters

Strain the mixture into the scalded milk. Pressing the celery through a fine sieve removes fibres so the soup stays smooth. Scalding the milk first heats it so the mixture does not cool sharply and lumps can be avoided when combined.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, milk, flour, 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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