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Cream of Celery Soup

A creamy soup made from celery, water, butter, milk, and optional stock, thickened with crackers or flour.

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

Cream of Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Chop the celery and cook it in 1 pint of water with 1 tablespoon of butter until soft.

  2. Mash the cooked celery in the same water.

  3. Add 2 to 3 tablespoons of stock if available and 1 quart of milk.

  4. Bring to a boil.

  5. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  6. Strain the mixture.

  7. Thicken the soup with crushed crackers or flour as desired.

Serve

  1. Serve very hot.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 flavor and, when cooked and mashed, the body of the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and richness, and its proteins help give the soup a smooth mouthfeel.
Crackers or flour
Thickens the soup by absorbing liquid and swelling when heated.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a rounder, smoother flavor.

The step that matters

Bringing the milk to a boil. Once milk is added, it can scorch on the bottom of the pot or curdle if overheated. Stirring often and heating gently keeps the soup smooth. Thickeners also need to be heated to fully hydrate and thicken.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, flour, 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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