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Celery Soup

A soup made from celery, stock, cream, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,331 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the celery into small pieces.

Make the soup

  1. Add the celery to the boiling water, seasoned with nutmeg, salt, and sugar.

  2. Boil until tender, then pass through a sieve.

  3. Add the stock and simmer for 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the cream and milk, bring to a boil, and serve.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,331 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Nutmeg and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 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

Celery
Forms the main body and flavour of the soup once boiled and sieved.
Strong stock
Adds savoury depth and body to the liquid.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture.
Milk
Thins the soup slightly while keeping it creamy.

The step that matters

Boil until tender, then pass through a sieve. Celery must be fully softened so the fibres break down when sieved; undercooked pieces leave a stringy, grainy texture in the finished soup.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against nutmeg, sugar, 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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