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Cream of Celery Soup

A soup made from boiled chicken, celery, and a butter‑flour‑milk‑water roux, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

  1. Cut up a chicken and boil it until tender, ensuring there is enough liquid.

  2. Remove the chicken meat and add 3 sticks of chopped celery to the broth; boil until the broth has a celery flavor.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix 1 tablespoon of butter, 2 tablespoons of flour, ½ cup of milk, and ½ cup of water to make a smooth paste.

  4. Add the paste to the broth, along with a lump of butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  5. Serve 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. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth, creamy body when mixed with fat and liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body, softening the soup's flavor.
Celery
Provides the main aroma and flavor of the soup.

The step that matters

Mixing the paste into the broth. Flour mixed directly into hot liquid clumps. Blending it smoothly with butter and cold liquid first lets the starch disperse evenly, so the soup thickens without lumps.

Swap the celery

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

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

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