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Brown Onion Soup

A savory soup made with sliced onions, beef broth, butter, flour, bay leaf, thyme, salt, pepper, and served with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Brown Onion Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Slice the onions thinly.

  2. In a pot, melt the butter over medium heat.

Make the soup

  1. Add the onions and cook until golden brown.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Add the beef broth, bay leaf, and thyme.

  4. Simmer for 30 minutes, season with salt and pepper.

Serve

  1. 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.

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. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Cook down to golden brown, providing the sweet, deep flavor that defines the soup.
Beef broth
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the flavors of the other ingredients.
Butter
Fat that cooks the onions and adds richness and browning.
Flour
Thickens the broth slightly as it cooks briefly with the butter and onions.

The step that matters

Browning the onions. Onions need enough time over medium heat for their sugars to caramelize into golden brown. Rushing this leaves the soup pale and flat-tasting, while over-high heat can scorch them and make the soup bitter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, pepper, flour, thyme):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, pepper, flour, thyme. 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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