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Creamed Egg Soup for Invalids

A soup made with mashed potato, butter, egg yolk, milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Creamed Egg Soup for Invalids

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, combine the mashed potato and butter.

  2. Add the hard-boiled egg yolk and cream together.

Make the soup

  1. In another pot, bring the milk to a boiling point, but do not boil.

  2. Stir in the flour until well combined.

  3. Mix the milk mixture into the potato mixture and stir well.

  4. Strain the soup into a heated bowl and serve hot.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Mashed potato
Thickens the soup and gives it a smooth, body-rich texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Hard-boiled egg yolk
Adds richness and a creamy, savory flavor to the soup.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and adds creaminess and mild sweetness.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so the soup holds a smooth consistency.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour until well combined. Flour clumps if it hits hot liquid unmixed. Stirring it in thoroughly before combining with the rest keeps the soup smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

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