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Celery Cream Soup

A creamy soup made from celery, stock, milk, cream, and butter, finished with sugar and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Celery Cream 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 ↓

Celery Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Trim the celery and remove the green parts.

  2. Wash thoroughly and cut into small pieces.

  3. Blanch in slightly salted water, then drain well.

  4. Return to a saucepan with ⅓ cup (2 oz.) of butter.

  5. Cook over medium heat for a few minutes without browning.

  6. Moisten with a little stock.

  7. Add salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste.

  8. Cover and simmer slowly for 30 minutes.

Make the soup

  1. In another saucepan, mix the flour with the remaining butter and cook a little without browning.

  2. Dilute with the milk, then add the stock.

  3. Add the partially cooked celery and simmer until the celery is tender.

  4. Pass through a fine sieve, then boil again and skim.

  5. Add the sugar and more seasoning if needed.

  6. Stir in the cream and reheat without boiling.

Serve

  1. Pour into a soup tureen.

  2. Serve with croutons on the side.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Celery + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,331 recipes

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Celery
Forms the main body of the soup and gives its flavour.
Butter
Fat that softens the celery and carries flavour into the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter into a roux.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture.
White stock
Liquid base that cooks the celery and carries its flavour.

The step that matters

Cook the flour and butter without browning. Cooking the flour in fat until pale removes its raw taste and lets it thicken evenly. Browning gives a nutty colour and weaker thickening, which changes the soup's flavour and colour.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, cream, pepper, nutmeg, sugar. 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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