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Celery Soup Puree, Spanish Style

A creamy celery soup puree made with celery, roots, broth, cream, and egg yolks, garnished with parsley and fried bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Celery Soup Puree, Spanish Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Clean and wash the celery, trimming off the green parts.

  2. Cut the tender parts into 1-inch pieces and slice the celery roots finely.

  3. Parboil the celery and roots for 5 minutes, then immerse in cold water, drain, and dry.

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the celery, seasoning with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and sugar.

  2. Cover and simmer until moisture is reduced.

  3. Add the white broth and a bunch of parsley, garnished with leeks and green onions.

  4. Boil until the celery is well cooked, then add the thickened veal or chicken broth.

  5. Boil slowly for 20 minutes, then remove the parsley and strain the soup through a fine sieve.

  6. Return the soup to the saucepan to keep warm.

Finish and serve

  1. When ready to serve, mix in the cream, diluted with the egg yolks, and the butter until melted.

  2. Garnish with chopped parsley and serve with small fried bread crumbs.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Celery + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Leek + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Forms the bulk of the puree, giving the soup its body and vegetable flavour.
Celery roots
Add a dense, earthy texture that thickens the puree when cooked and strained.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the celery as it cooks.
Thickened veal or chicken broth
Supplies savoury depth and liquid for the puree to simmer and reduce into a soup.
Cream
Adds fat and silkiness, giving the finished soup a smooth, rich texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the cream, giving the finished soup a velvety body.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated, so if the soup boils after they are added they can curdle and turn grainy. Keep the soup hot but below a boil while mixing them in.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, butter, pepper, nutmeg, sugar, parsley, leek):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, butter, pepper, nutmeg, sugar, parsley, leek. 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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