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Soup

Celery Soup

A soup made from celery, onion, water, and cream stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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

  1. Wash and cut the celery and onion into small pieces.

  2. Boil in enough water to cover until tender.

  3. Press through a colander.

  4. Add 1 quart of cream stock.

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. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Celery + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,863 recipes

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

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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 pressed.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the cooked vegetable base.
Cream stock
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the pressed soup.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celerythe original
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, 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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