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Soup

Celery Soup

A light soup made with celery, stock, butter, flour, cream, salt, and peppercorns.

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

Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Wash and chop the celery.

  2. Add the celery and peppercorns to the stock and boil until tender.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

Make the soup

  1. In a pan, heat the butter until hot but not browned.

  2. Stir in the flour and mix until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the stock, boiling for 2-3 minutes.

  4. Stir in the salt.

Serve

  1. Pour the cream into a serving bowl and add the soup.

  2. Serve immediately.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Celery + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,863 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provides the main flavour and body of the soup as it softens and releases its juices into the stock.
Butter
Carries flavour and, when melted with flour, forms the base that thickens the soup.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, velvety soup when cooked with the butter.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the butter. If the butter is browned or the flour is not mixed in smoothly, lumps and a darker, nutty taste can form. Stirring constantly over gentle heat and adding the stock gradually keeps the roux smooth so it thickens the soup evenly.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, 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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