Name: Sorrel Soup with Cream
Ingredients: 3 quarts chicken or veal broth; salt and pepper to taste; 1 pint milk; 8 egg yolks; 6 ounces butter; 2 French rolls

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Sorrel Soup with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

In a pot, cook flour until done, then moisten with chicken or veal broth, stirring until it boils.
Reduce heat and let it simmer for 25 minutes, seasoning with salt and pepper.
In a bowl, mix milk with egg yolks and butter until combined.
Add the milk mixture to the soup, stirring until the butter melts.
Slice the French rolls finely and brown them in the oven.
Place the browned rolls in a soup tureen and pour the soup over them before serving.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,389 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,902 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,958 recipes

Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).