Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Potage a LA Puree De Celeri, or Celery Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the celery
Trim and wash the celery, then blanch it in a large pot of salted water until tender.
Drain the celery and stir it in a pot with butter, sugar, and salt until the butter is clear.
Mix in a ladle of consommé and boil for a few minutes until the celery is mashed.
Make the soup
Stir in the sauce tournee and boil well, then rub the mixture through a fine sieve.
Add the strong consommé and thick cream, then transfer to a soup pot.
About 30 minutes before serving, heat the soup to a boil and skim off any foam.
Serve
Serve with blanched and stewed celery added just before serving.
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.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,787 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,147 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Celery
- Forms the body of the soup, and when mashed and sieved it thickens the base and gives its flavor.
- Butter
- Adds richness and carries flavor as the celery is cooked down in it.
- Sauce tournee
- Adds body and thickening to the soup base as it is boiled and then sieved.
- Thick cream
- Adds richness, smooth texture and body to the finished soup.
- Consommé
- Provides a clear, savory meat-based liquid that gives the soup its main flavor and moisture.
The step that matters
Rubbing the mixture through a fine sieve. Pushing the boiled celery through a fine sieve breaks down the fibers and removes stringy pieces, giving the soup a smooth, even texture. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the soup coarse and gritty.
Swap the celery
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, sauce, cream):
- Nutmegfits better
- Cinnamonfits better
- Capersfits better
- Celerythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, sauce, 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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