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Celery Soup

A soup made from celery, ham, stock, butter, and cream, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Make the soup

  1. Cut the white parts of the celery and boil them in the stock with the chopped ham and butter.

  2. Simmer gently for 1 hour, then drain through a sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the liquid to the pan and stir in a few tablespoons of cream carefully.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve with pieces of toasted bread.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

  5. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Provides the main flavour and body of the soup as it cooks down into the stock.
White stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the celery and ham.
Lean ham
Adds savoury, meaty flavour to the stock as it simmers.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a silkier texture when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Stirring in the cream. Cream can curdle or separate if it boils after it is added, so it should be stirred in gently off the heat or over low heat. Gentle stirring keeps the soup smooth and evenly creamy.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, ham, cream, pepper, bread. 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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