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Celery Soup

A simple soup made from boiled celery, milk, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Cut the celery (except for the heart pieces) into small dice.

  2. Cover the diced celery with cold water and boil for 3 to 4 hours.

  3. Rub the boiled celery through a colander back into the pan.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the milk and butter to the pan.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil and serve hot.

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

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

  3. Celery + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

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

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Forms the main body and flavor of the soup once boiled and strained.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel and a mellow flavor.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, thinning the purée into a smooth soup.

The step that matters

Rub the boiled celery through a colander. Pressing the softened celery through the colander breaks down its fibers and gives the soup a smooth texture. Leaving lumps or skipping this straining leaves the soup coarse and stringy.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, 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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