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Cream of Celery Soup

A creamy soup made from celery, onion, butter, flour, milk, and seasonings.

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 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

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Wash, scrape, and cut the celery into ½ inch lengths.

  2. Cook the celery in 1 pint of boiling salted water until very soft.

  3. Mash the celery in the water it was boiled in.

Make the soup

  1. Cook the onion and milk in a double boiler for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the onion and milk mixture to the celery.

  3. Rub the mixture through a strainer.

  4. Bring the strained mixture to a boil again.

  5. Thicken the soup with butter and flour.

  6. Season the soup.

  7. Boil the soup for 5 minutes.

  8. Strain the soup into a tureen.

  9. Serve the soup 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. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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 flavour and, when cooked and mashed, the body of the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a soft, rich texture to the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and, combined with flour, helps thicken the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter, giving it a smoother body.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked into the butter and hot liquid so it swells and thickens smoothly; added raw or unevenly, it forms lumps that stay in the soup.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, 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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