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Soup

Cream of Celery

A creamy soup made from celery, beef stock, butter, flour, cream, and egg yolks, seasoned with salt, white pepper, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Cream of Celery

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cream of Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Select celery.

  2. Wash celery. Remove leaves and green parts.

  3. Cut celery into small pieces. Place celery in a saucepan. Cover with cold water and a little salt.

Make the soup

  1. Bring to a boil. Add beef stock. Boil for one hour.

  2. Strain the celery. Rub the celery through a fine sieve, keeping the liquid hot.

  3. In another pan, melt the butter. Stir in the flour. Fry briefly.

  4. Dilute the mixture with the celery stock. Add the cream. Bring to a boil.

  5. If the soup is too thick, add more stock. Season with salt, white pepper, and ground mace.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix the egg yolks with ⅓ cup of cream. Stir rapidly into the soup. Strain again.

  2. Serve.

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

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

  2. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Celery + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Celery
Provides the main flavour and, once rubbed through a sieve, the body of the soup.
Butter
Carries flavour and enriches the soup, giving it a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Flour
Cooked briefly in butter to form a roux that thickens the soup.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup as they set gently when stirred into hot liquid.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolks into the soup. Egg yolks scramble if they meet very hot liquid unevenly. Mixing them with cream first and stirring rapidly into the soup distributes the heat, so the soup thickens smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, beef, butter, flour, cream, egg, mace):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, beef, butter, flour, cream, egg, mace. 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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