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Celery Cream Puree

A creamy soup made from celery, leeks, ham, potato flour, milk, cream, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,093 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Celery Cream Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Remove the root end from the leeks.

  2. Slice the white part of the leeks and place into a clean saucepan.

  3. Remove the root from the celery and all the outer stalks, then cut the inner portions into shreds.

  4. Add the celery, leeks, ham, butter, a pinch of salt, white peppercorns, and mace to the pan.

  5. Cook without browning for 15 minutes.

Make the puree

  1. Add the stock and skim.

  2. Simmer for about 1.5 hours until it becomes a pulp.

  3. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

  4. Return the puree to the pan.

Finish and serve

  1. Heat the milk and cream separately.

  2. Blend the potato flour with a little cold milk.

  3. Mix the heated milk and cream with the puree.

  4. Add the blended mixture 10 minutes before serving.

  5. Serve with diced 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 + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Leek + potatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Celery + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Leek + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Provides the main vegetable body and flavour of the puree.
Leeks
Add a mild onion-like aroma and body to the puree.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the cooking.
Potato flour
Thickens the puree as it is added, giving it a smooth, body-rich texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, mellowing the puree into a creamier texture.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the finished puree a smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Add the blended potato flour 10 minutes before serving. Starch thickens when heated, so it needs time to cook through and thicken evenly. Adding it too early or too late can leave the puree either lumpy or thin, and the mixture must be stirred in smoothly first to avoid clumps.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, leek, potato, flour, butter, ham, milk):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, leek, potato, flour, butter, ham, milk. 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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