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Soup

Celery Cream

A creamy soup made from rice, milk, and celery, seasoned with 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: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Celery Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a pot, combine the rice and milk.

  2. Grate the white part and roots of the celery into the pot.

  3. Cook slowly on low heat, adding more milk if it thickens.

Finish the soup

  1. Season with salt and white pepper.

  2. Strain the mixture and add it to warmed stock.

  3. Boil together for a few minutes until it resembles rich cream.

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. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Thickens the milk and gives the cream body as it cooks down.
Celery
Provides the main flavor and aroma of the cream.
Rich milk
Adds richness and creaminess, and cooks down to a smooth, thick texture.
Clear soup stock or chicken broth
Forms the liquid base that the cream is added to and boiled into.

The step that matters

Cook slowly on low heat. Milk scorches and sticks to the pot when heated too fast, and rice starch can clump or burn. Low, gentle heat keeps the milk smooth and lets the mixture thicken evenly, so stirring and adding milk as needed prevents a grainy or burnt result.

Swap the white pepper

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice, milk, 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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