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Celery Soup

A creamy celery soup made with butter, milk, and Marmite, thickened with tapioca.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and start the celery

  1. Wash and trim the celery, then cut it into small pieces.

  2. Melt the butter in a stewpan and add the celery; cook for a few minutes.

Simmer and finish

  1. Add the Marmite dissolved in the water and boil for 1 hour.

  2. Stir in the crushed tapioca and boil for an additional 30 minutes.

  3. Remove any scum and season to taste.

  4. Add the milk and cream, then reheat the soup.

  5. Serve with fried bread croutons.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Celery + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Forms the body and main vegetable flavour of the soup as it simmers and softens.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when it melts and cooks the celery gently.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a mild, smooth body to the finished soup.
Crushed tapioca
Thickens the soup as its starch swells and gelatinises during simmering.
Marmite
Adds savoury depth and a salty, umami note to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmering the tapioca. Tapioca thickens only as its starch swells and cooks through during sustained simmering. Stirring it in and boiling for the full 30 minutes prevents lumps and a raw, pasty taste.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Macefits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, 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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