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Artichoke Soup

A creamy soup made from Jerusalem artichokes, butter, onions, flour, egg yolks, and cream, seasoned with salt, pepper, and optional Tabasco.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Artichoke Soup

Why it works: Jerusalem 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 116 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Artichoke Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the artichokes

  1. Combine coarse sea salt, flour, and lemon juice or vinegar in a large stewpan.

  2. Gradually add water and bring to a gentle boil.

  3. Add peeled artichokes and cook until soft, about 35 minutes.

Make the soup base

  1. Melt butter in another pan and sauté chopped onion until soft but not colored.

  2. Remove the pan from heat and stir in flour.

  3. Add hot water.

  4. Add Mirepoix.

  5. Bring to a boil while stirring continuously.

  6. Add boiled artichokes to the mixture and boil for 15 minutes.

  7. Pass the soup through a fine sieve back into the clean stewpan.

Finish and serve

  1. Whisk egg yolks and cream together in a bowl.

  2. Stir the egg yolk mixture into the soup.

  3. Add sugar, season with salt, pepper, and Tabasco sauce if desired.

  4. Serve hot with croutons.

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. Jerusalem artichoke + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together116 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Jerusalem artichoke + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together72 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Jerusalem artichoke + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together140 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Jerusalem artichokes
Form the main body of the soup and give its earthy, nutty flavor once cooked and strained.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells with heat, giving the soup body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and carries flavor from the onion into the soup.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup gently with heat and add richness and a smooth texture.
Cream
Adds fat that softens the flavor and makes the finished soup silkier.
Lemon juice or white vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps keep the artichokes pale.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolk mixture into the soup. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but they can scramble if they meet very hot liquid. Stirring the mixture in steadily spreads the yolk evenly so the soup thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (jerusalem artichoke, flour, lemon, butter, egg, cream, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against jerusalem artichoke, flour, lemon, butter, egg, cream, 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.

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