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Celery Soup

A light soup made from celery, onion, and water, thickened with cornstarch and finished with milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Wash and chop the celery, then place it in an enamel bowl.

  2. Add salt, onion, and cold water.

  3. Simmer until the celery is soft and the water is reduced.

  4. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

Thicken and finish

  1. Mix cornstarch with a little of the soup.

  2. Add the cornstarch mixture back to the pot.

  3. Bring to a boil.

  4. Stir in the milk and do not boil again.

  5. For a richer soup, add a beaten egg just 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.

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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Onion + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Celery + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Celery + eggtop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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 simmered and sieved.
Cornstarch
Thickens the soup as its starch swells when heated with liquid.
Egg
Adds richness and body to the soup when beaten in just before serving.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the flavour of the soup.

The step that matters

Stir in the milk and do not boil again. Milk can curdle or separate when boiled for long, and boiling again after thickening can break the smooth texture. Keeping it just below a boil preserves a silky soup.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, milk, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, milk, egg. 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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