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Two Salsify Soups

A creamy soup made from sliced salsify, milk, butter, flour, and optional egg yolk and cream.

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

Two Salsify Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salsify

  1. Scrape the salsify roots and place them in cold water.

  2. Cut the salsify into very thin slices and cover with 1 quart of cold water.

Make the soup

  1. Add the bay leaf and onion, cover, and cook for 30 minutes.

  2. Stir in the milk and butter mixed with flour.

  3. Bring to a boil.

  4. Add salt and white pepper.

  5. For a smoother soup, press the salsify through a sieve or grate it before cooking.

  6. For a richer soup, beat the egg yolks with cream.

  7. Add just 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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Salsify
Provides the main body and mild, oyster-like flavour of the soup.
Milk
Adds creamy liquid that gives the soup a smooth, mellow body.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavour, and is cooked with flour to thicken the soup.
Flour
Mixed with butter and stirred in, it thickens the soup by swelling as it heats.
Egg yolks
Enrich the soup and add thickness and richness when beaten with cream.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the flavour and body of the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks and cream. If the yolks are added to very hot soup without first being beaten with cream, they can scramble and turn grainy. Adding them just before serving and keeping the soup below a boil helps the yolks thicken it smoothly.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, milk, butter, flour, egg, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, milk, butter, flour, egg, cream. 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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