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Soup

Duchess Soup

A creamy onion soup thickened with flour or sago, enriched with egg and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Duchess Soup

Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Duchess Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Cook the onion in the fat until tender but not brown.

  2. Remove the onion.

  3. Add the flour gradually to the pot, then slowly add the milk, setting aside ½ cup.

  4. Cook until smooth and add salt and paprika to taste.

  5. If using sago or tapioca, add it to the milk and cook for 1.5 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour the soup over the beaten egg mixed with ¼ cup of cold milk.

  2. Add the grated cheese and serve immediately.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  2. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Rice + cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together942 recipes

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

  5. Onion + cheesetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,849 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

Rice flour or sago or tapioca
Thickens the milk so the soup becomes smooth and body-rich.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the thickener sets into a creamy soup.
Egg
Enriches the soup and adds body as it gently sets when poured in.
Grated cheese
Adds richness and savoury flavour that melts into the hot soup.

The step that matters

Pouring the soup over the egg mixture. Eggs thicken when heated, so the hot soup must be poured in gradually while stirring, and the cheese added after. Pouring too fast or overheating can scramble the egg and leave lumps.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, egg, cheese. 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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