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Cream of Celery Soup

A creamy soup made from veal bone broth, celery, cream, and thickened with flour or cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Cream of Celery Soup

Why it works: Celery and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,905 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cream of Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Cook the veal bone in water for 5 hours with salt.

  2. Add the celery stalks when the broth is nearly done.

  3. Strain the broth and let it cool.

Finish the soup

  1. The next day, skim off the fat from the broth.

  2. Add 1 pint of cream and thicken with flour or cornstarch as needed.

  3. Season 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Celery + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,863 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Veal + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal bone
Releases flavor and gelatin into the water, giving the broth body and savoriness.
Celery
Adds its characteristic aroma and vegetal flavor to the broth.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Flour or cornstarch
Thickens the soup by swelling with heat and binding liquid into a smoother body.

The step that matters

Skim the fat after chilling. Fat rises and solidifies when the broth cools overnight, so removing it cleanly keeps the soup from tasting greasy once the cream is added.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, cream, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, cream, flour. 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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