Skip to main content
Main

Artichoke Puree Soup

A creamy soup made from boiled artichokes, butter, stock, and seasonings, finished with butter and served with fried bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and celery 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 ↓

Artichoke Puree Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the artichokes

  1. Peel the artichokes and cut them into quarters.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the artichokes with butter, salt, pepper, and sugar.

  3. Set the saucepan over low heat until the artichokes turn light in color.

Make the soup

  1. Add enough white stock broth to cover the artichokes, along with the faggot of parsley and the onions.

  2. Cover and cook until the artichokes are tender.

  3. Stir in the thickened chicken or veal broth and let it boil slowly for 30 minutes.

  4. Remove the faggot of parsley and onions, skim the soup, and strain it through a fine sieve.

  5. Return the soup to the saucepan to keep warm.

Serve

  1. Before serving, stir in a piece of butter until melted.

  2. Serve with small fried bread crumbs on the side.

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. Parsley + celerytop 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. Artichoke + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together524 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Artichoke + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together183 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Artichokes
Form the main body of the soup, giving its flavor and most of its substance.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and giving the soup a smooth mouthfeel.
Thickened chicken or veal broth
Provides the liquid base and savory depth that the soup is built on.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and savory flavor to the broth while it simmers.

The step that matters

Straining through a fine sieve. Artichoke fibers and leftover bits can leave the soup grainy. Straining after the long simmer removes them, so the texture stays smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, butter, pepper, sugar, parsley, celery, chicken):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, butter, pepper, sugar, parsley, celery, chicken. 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.

More artichoke soup recipes

Jerusalem 55Brown 3 See all 70 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipes