Skip to main content
Main

Parker House Soup

A thickened beef soup made with butter, flour, and optional tomatoes, seasoned with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Parker House Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Strain the beef stock through a colander.

Make the roux

  1. Heat the butter in a pan until light brown.

  2. Remove from heat and sift in the flour, mixing well.

  3. Add 1 pint of the hot soup to the mixture and pour it into the soup kettle.

Finish the soup

  1. Season with pepper, salt, and sugar.

  2. Place on the fire and stir until it boils.

  3. Boil and skim for 5 minutes.

  4. If using, add the tomatoes before straining.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Beef stock
Forms the liquid base that carries all the other flavors.
Butter
Adds richness and, browned, a nutty aroma.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the soup with the butter as a roux.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness that balances the savory stock.

The step that matters

Browning the butter. Butter that is taken too far darkens quickly and turns bitter, while under-browned butter gives little nutty flavor. Watch the color closely and remove it from heat at light brown.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, flour, pepper, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour, pepper, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes