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Squash Soup

A creamy soup made from summer squash, butter, onion, stock, cream, and egg yolks, served with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Squash Soup

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Squash Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare and slice the squashes.

Cook the base

  1. In a saucepan, combine the squashes, butter, onion, pepper, salt, and ½ pint of stock.

  2. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Press the mixture through a fine sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Add 1 quart of boiling stock and ½ pint of cream.

  2. Place in a double boiler, season to taste, and heat until very hot.

  3. Pour into a tureen over the well-beaten yolks of 2 eggs.

  4. Serve with croutons.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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

Squashes
Form the bulk of the soup and give it its main flavour and body once softened and sieved.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour from the onion and squash during the gentle cooking.
Onion
Contributes savoury depth to the base as it softens with the squash.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished soup.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup gently and add richness when stirred into the hot liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat. If the soup is too hot when they go in, they can scramble and turn grainy, so the soup should be hot but not boiling when they are poured in.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, cream, egg. 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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