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Celery Soup

A veal and celery soup thickened with cream and corn starch.

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 broth

  1. Place half of the celery in the water with the veal and boil in a covered pot for 3 hours, or until the meat falls apart.

  2. Strain the mixture and return the liquid to the pot.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the remaining celery, season with salt and pepper, and boil for an additional 20 minutes.

  2. Before serving, stir the corn-starch into the cream and add it to the soup.

  3. Boil for 10 more minutes and serve with fried toast.

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. Celery + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together920 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  5. Veal + celerytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,336 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

Veal
Breaks down during long simmering, releasing gelatin that gives the broth body.
Celery
Provides the main aromatic flavor of the broth and soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel.
Corn-starch
Swells when heated in the soup, thickening it.

The step that matters

Stirring the corn-starch into the cream before adding it to the soup. Starch clumps if it hits hot liquid dry. Mixing it into cold cream first disperses the granules, and the boil that follows fully hydrates the starch so the soup thickens smoothly.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, cream, corn, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, cream, corn, pepper. 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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