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Zwiebelsuppe

A clear onion soup with sautéed onions, garlic, marjoram, wine, broth, and toasted bread rounds topped with parmesan.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Zwiebelsuppe

Time10 minutes at a gentle simmer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Heat oil in a large pot.

  2. Saute garlic slices and chopped marjoram 2 minutes.

  3. Add the onion slices and cook about 5 minutes (or longer if you like them very soft).

  4. Add wine and broth and cook, uncovered, 10 minutes at a gentle simmer (bubbling, but not boiling).

  5. Test soup- season well with salt and pepper.

  6. Soup is ready when onions are tender- broth will be very clear & pinkish in color.

Make the toasts

  1. Meanwhile, heat up your broiler and line a baking sheet with foil.

  2. Using a 6 cm round biscuit cutter, cut bread slices into rounds (discard excess)- you may also use a glass.

  3. Set bread rounds on foil lined pan and sprinkle with cheese and broil only about 1 minute- just to melt cheese.

Serve

  1. Ladle into bowls and float a bread round on top of each bowlful, garnishing with some extra fresh marjoram if desired.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

979Calories
57 gProtein
26 gFat
121 gCarbs

Counts 11 of 12 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 11 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Chicken100g cooked165
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Parmesan Cheese1 oz (28g)110
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Red Onion1 medium (110g)44
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Marjoramnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Clove + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Garlic + olivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Garlic + marjoramtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together616 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Garlic + chickentop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,850 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook slowly, forming the body of the soup.
Red onions
Add sweetness and deeper colour to the soup as they soften.
Garlic
Adds aroma that deepens as it gently sautés in the oil.
Dry white wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the broth as it simmers.
Chicken broth
Provides the liquid base that carries the flavour of the soup.
Parmesan cheese
Melts over the bread rounds, adding savoury richness and browning.

The step that matters

Simmer gently, do not boil. A gentle simmer lets the broth clarify and keeps the onions tender. A hard boil makes the liquid cloudy and can toughen the onions and evaporate flavour too quickly.

Swap the marjoram

The recipe marks marjoram as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, clove, garlic, olive, white wine, chicken, bread):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cuminfits about as well
  3. Rosemaryfits about as well
  4. Marjoramthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, clove, garlic, olive, white wine, chicken, 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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