Name: Celery Soup
Ingredients: 6 heads of celery; 3 quarts of water; salt to taste; 1/2 teaspoon celery seed (optional); 1 teaspoon sugar (optional)

Why it works: Celery and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,794 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Split the celery into 2-inch pieces and wash them well.
Drain the celery on a sieve.

Stew the soup

In a large soup pot, combine the celery and water.
Set the pot by the fire to stew gently for about 1 hour until the celery is tender.
Skim off any scum that rises to the surface.
If using celery seed, add it along with sugar 15 minutes before the soup is done.
Season with salt to taste.

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.

Celery + sugartop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,794 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 flavor of the soup as it softens and releases its juices into the water.
Water: Extracts celery flavor during the long gentle stew and becomes the soup liquid.
Celery seed: Adds a concentrated, aromatic celery flavor to the finished soup.
Sugar: Adds a small amount of sweetness that softens the soup's savory, vegetal edge.