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Cream of Celery Soup

A creamy soup made from blanched celery, milk, and butter, finished with parsley and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Cream of Celery Soup

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Wash and scrape the celery, then cut it into 1‑inch pieces.

  2. Cover the celery with 1 quart of water or white stock and cook slowly for 45 minutes until tender.

  3. Press the cooked celery through a puree sieve.

Finish the soup

  1. Add 1 quart of hot milk and bring to a boil.

  2. Thicken the soup with 2 tablespoons of flour blended with 2 tablespoons of butter, stirring constantly until smooth and creamy.

  3. Stir in 1 tablespoon of minced parsley and ½ cup of cream.

  4. Serve with souffle balls.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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 flavour and body of the soup once cooked and pureed.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter
Combines with the flour to form a roux that helps thicken the soup and adds richness.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body, mellowing the soup's flavour.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour and butter. Stirring constantly keeps the flour from clumping. Cooking the flour and butter together until smooth lets the starch swell evenly, so the soup thickens without lumps.

Swap the celery

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

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

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