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Soup

Onion Soup I

A milk-based soup with sautéed onions, butter, and crushed crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 ↓

Onion Soup I

Ingredients

Directions

Make the flavored milk

  1. Brown the butter slightly in a saucepan.

  2. Add the chopped onions and sauté until soft.

  3. Pour in the milk and heat slowly until hot.

  4. Strain to remove the onions and save them for dressing.

  5. Season the flavored milk to taste.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, crush 2 crackers and stir them into the soup.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Milk + oniontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base and gives the soup its creamy body.
Onions
Soften and turn sweet when sautéed, flavoring the milk.
Butter
Adds richness, and browning it gives a nutty aroma.

The step that matters

Heat the milk slowly until hot. Milk scorches or boils over easily on high heat, and scorched milk tastes burnt. Gentle heating keeps the milk smooth and evenly warm.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter. 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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