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Cream of Celery Soup

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

Make the soup base

  1. Cook the onion and celery in the water until the celery is tender.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve until smooth.

  3. Add the milk to the strained mixture.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a double boiler, combine the butter, flour, salt, and pepper, and mix until creamy.

  2. Add the creamy mixture to the soup and cook for 10 minutes.

  3. Stir in the finely chopped tender uncooked celery 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.

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

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Flour
Thickens the soup into a smooth, creamy body as it cooks with the butter.
Butter
Combines with the flour to form a roux that helps thicken the soup and adds richness.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base of the soup and adds richness and body.
Celery
Provides the main flavor and, once strained, the smooth body of the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the creamy mixture to the soup. The butter and flour mixture must be smooth before it goes into the soup. Lumps of flour that are not fully blended will not dissolve evenly, leaving grainy specks instead of a silky texture.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, flour, white pepper, milk, pepper, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, flour, white pepper, milk, pepper, butter. 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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