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Soup

Celery Soup

A soup made from celery heads simmered in veal broth, sweetened with sugar, optionally spiced with cayenne, and finished with cream.

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

Cook the celery

  1. Blanch the celery heads in warm water.

  2. Place them in a stewpan with veal broth and a lump of sugar.

  3. Boil for 1 to 2 hours until soft.

Finish and serve

  1. Either pulp through a sieve and thicken with cream or serve as a stew.

  2. Add a little cayenne pepper if desired.

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

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

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

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

  4. Celery + vealtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,336 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Celery heads
Provide the main body and flavor of the soup as they soften into a pulp.
Veal broth
Supplies the liquid and savory depth in which the celery cooks.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture when the soup is thickened.
Sugar
Adds a small amount of sweetness that balances the vegetable flavor.

The step that matters

Boil until soft. Celery must cook long enough to become fully tender, because only fully softened celery pulps smoothly through a sieve and gives a silky texture.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Celerythe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, sugar, pepper, 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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