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Celery Cream Soup

A creamy soup made from grated celery, rice milk, white stock, salt, cayenne pepper, and optional cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Celery Cream Soup

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 Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Grate the white part of the celery on a bread grater.

  2. Add the grated celery to the strained rice milk.

  3. Pour in the strong white stock and bring to a boil.

  4. Cook until the celery is perfectly tender.

  5. Season with salt and cayenne pepper.

Finish and serve

  1. If using, stir in the cream before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  3. Celery + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

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, once cooked until tender, thickens the soup into a smooth body.
Rice milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that the grated celery cooks into.
Strong white stock
Adds savoury depth and body to the liquid base.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Cook until the celery is perfectly tender. Grated celery must be cooked fully so its fibres soften; under-cooked celery leaves the soup grainy and tasting raw, while proper cooking lets the starches and fibres break down into a smooth texture.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, pepper, 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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