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Artichoke Soup

A creamy soup made from boiled artichokes, milk, flour, butter, salt, pepper, and served with chicken forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Artichoke Soup

Why it works: Artichoke and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 466 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Artichoke Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the artichokes

  1. Wash the artichokes.

  2. Boil them in water for 45 minutes.

  3. Drain the artichokes.

  4. Pull them apart.

  5. Press them through a puree sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Add the pureed artichokes.

  3. Rub the butter and flour together.

  4. Stir the mixture into the hot milk, stirring continuously until thickened.

  5. Add salt and pepper.

  6. Cook for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with tiny chicken forcemeat balls.

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. Artichoke + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together466 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Artichoke + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

French artichokes
Pureed into the soup, they provide the body and the main vegetable flavor.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that the purees and thickener are combined into.
Flour
Its starch swells in hot milk and thickens the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour into the hot milk. Flour clumps easily when added to hot liquid. Rubbing it with butter first and stirring continuously disperses the starch evenly, so the starch can swell smoothly and the soup thickens without lumps.

“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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