Skip to main content
Main

Palestine Soup or Puree of Artichokes

A savory artichoke soup made with bacon or ham, onion, turnip, celery, butter, flour, stock, milk, and optional cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Turnip and artichoke match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 140 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Palestine Soup or Puree of Artichokes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the bacon or ham into small thin slices.

  2. Cut the onion into small thin slices.

  3. Cut the turnip into small thin slices.

  4. Cut the celery into small thin slices.

  5. Melt the butter over medium heat in a stewpan.

  6. Add the sliced bacon or ham, onion, turnip, and celery to the stewpan.

  7. Stir constantly for about 20 minutes until a whitish glaze forms at the bottom.

  8. Wash the artichokes.

  9. Peel the artichokes.

  10. Slice the artichokes.

  11. Add the artichokes to the stewpan with the broth or water.

  12. Stew until the artichokes are tender.

Make the soup

  1. Mix in the flour smoothly.

  2. Add the stock and milk.

  3. Stir constantly until boiling.

  4. Season with salt and sugar.

  5. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  6. Return the sieved mixture to the stewpan.

  7. Boil for 5 minutes.

  8. Skim as needed.

Serve

  1. Serve with croutons.

  2. Stir in cream just before serving, if desired.

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. Turnip + artichoketop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together140 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Celery + artichoketop 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
Provide the main flavour and body of the soup once stewed and sieved.
Butter
Carries the aromatics and browns them gently to build flavour at the start.
Flour
Thickens the soup so it has a smooth, body-rich texture.
Bacon or ham
Adds savoury, salty depth as it cooks down with the vegetables.
Milk
Adds richness and softness, rounding the soup's texture.
Onion
Builds the aromatic base, adding sweetness as it softens.

The step that matters

Stir constantly for about 20 minutes until a whitish glaze forms at the bottom.. The vegetables can scorch on the pan base if left unattended. Constant stirring over medium heat softens them evenly and builds flavour without burning.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, turnip, celery, butter, artichoke, flour, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, turnip, celery, butter, artichoke, flour, milk. 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 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes