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Mode of Making Sarah Davis' White Dahl Soup

A soup made from white dahl, celery, parsley, mace, pepper, onion, milk, cream, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Mode of Making Sarah Davis' White Dahl Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Wash the dahl and place it in a saucepan with cold water, celery, parsley, mace, pepper cones, and sliced onion.

  2. Boil for one hour or until the dahl is soft.

  3. Rub the mixture through a sieve with a wooden spoon to extract as much pulp and liquid as possible.

Make the roux and finish

  1. In a separate saucepan, combine flour and butter, rubbing them together until smooth over low heat.

  2. Add the milk, stirring well until the mixture thickens.

  3. Incorporate the soup from the sieve, season with salt and pepper, and bring to a boil.

  4. Add the cream just before serving, ensuring it does not boil afterwards.

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

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Dahl
Breaks down into pulp that thickens and gives the soup its body.
Flour
Combined with butter and milk to thicken the soup into a smooth, creamy base.
Butter
Fat that cooks with the flour to form a smooth roux and adds richness.
Milk
Liquid that thickens with the roux and adds creaminess and mild sweetness.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Add the cream just before serving. Cream can curdle or separate when boiled for long, so it is stirred in at the end and kept from boiling afterwards to keep the soup smooth.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

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