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Cream of Vegetable Soups

A creamy soup made with butter, flour, milk, and mashed vegetables, seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Cream of Vegetable Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter or fat in a pot.

  2. Stir in the flour until thoroughly mixed.

  3. Gradually add the cold milk, stirring until it boils.

Add the vegetables

  1. Add enough mashed vegetables and the cooking water to achieve the desired consistency.

  2. For stronger flavors, use ½ cup of vegetable stock and pulp; for delicate flavors, use up to 1 quart of vegetables.

Finish

  1. Optionally, beat the mixture with an egg beater just before serving for a light texture.

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. Milk + potatotop 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. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Flour + milktop 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

Butter or clarified meat fat
Carries flavor and enriches the soup, while coating flour so it blends smoothly.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, body-giving base as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that thickens when heated with the roux.
Mashed vegetables
Add body, texture and the main vegetable flavor to the soup.

The step that matters

Gradually add the cold milk, stirring until it boils. Adding cold milk slowly to a flour and fat mixture, while stirring, keeps starch dispersed so the base thickens smoothly without lumps. Stopping stirring can let the flour clump and scorch on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Arrowrootfits about as well
  3. Leekfits less well
  4. Shallotfits less well

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