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Soup

Celery Soup

A soup made from celery, onions, butter, stock, flour, and seasonings, finished with optional cream and served with fried croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 soup

  1. Slice the celery and onions.

  2. Melt the butter in a pot and add the sliced vegetables.

  3. Pour in the maigre stock and simmer until soft.

  4. Stir in the flour, pepper, and salt until well mixed.

  5. Add the quart of stock or milk and stir over heat for 15 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

  2. Heat again and add cream if using.

  3. Serve with fried croutons.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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 flavour of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flavour of the softening vegetables.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks, giving it body.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and depth as they soften.
Stock or milk
Makes up the liquid base and gives the soup its volume.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Flour added to hot liquid can clump if not mixed in well, leaving lumps. Stirring until fully combined lets the starch disperse and thicken the soup smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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