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Cream of Celery Soup

A creamy soup made from celery, water, cream, butter, flour, 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 parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Celery Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Wash and cut the celery into small pieces.

  2. Cook the celery in the water until very soft.

Make the soup

  1. Mash the celery in the water and press through a strainer.

  2. Add the strained mixture to the cream and bring to a boil.

  3. Thicken the soup with the butter and flour rubbed together, then cook for five minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, add the extracts of onion and celery, and a little minced parsley.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cream + buttertop 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
Provides the main flavor and body of the soup once cooked and strained.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, and combines with flour to form a thickening roux.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter, giving it body.

The step that matters

Thickening with butter and flour. Rubbing the butter and flour together and cooking them for a few minutes in the hot soup lets the starch swell and thicken evenly. Adding the flour without blending it first can leave lumps.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, cream, butter, flour, pepper, parsley. 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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