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Puree of Brussels Sprouts

A smooth soup made from boiled Brussels sprouts, stock, cream, and seasonings, served with bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Puree of Brussels Sprouts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sprouts

  1. Pick over and wash the Brussels sprouts thoroughly.

  2. Plunge them into boiling salted water and boil for 20 minutes.

  3. Drain and force them through a colander, then rub through a sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Return to heat and add the soup stock.

  2. Wet the flour in a little cold milk and whisk it into the soup.

  3. Gradually add salt to taste and a dash of cayenne pepper.

  4. Scald the cream and whisk it into the soup.

  5. Taste for seasoning and serve with snippets of bread.

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 + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Brussels sprouts
Form the main body of the puree, giving the soup its vegetable flavor and thick texture.
Soup stock
Provides the liquid base that thins the puree and carries its savory flavor.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly so it holds a smoother, more body-filled consistency.
Rich cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the flavor and giving the soup a silky mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Rubbing the sprouts through a sieve. Forcing the cooked sprouts through a colander and sieve breaks down fibres and removes skins, so the puree is smooth rather than grainy or stringy.

Swap the brussels sprouts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, pepper, cream, bread):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Brussels sproutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, pepper, cream, bread. 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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