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Hygienic Soup

A soup made with white stock, oatmeal, milk, butter, and flour, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Fannie Merritt Farmer · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 6 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 ↓

Hygienic Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Heat the stock to boiling point.

  2. Add the oatmeal and boil for one hour.

  3. Rub the soup through a sieve.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the milk.

  2. Thicken with butter and flour cooked together.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

866Calories
27 gProtein
23 gFat
136 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Oat1/2 cup dry (40g)154
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

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

By Fannie Merritt Farmer. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

White stock iii
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries its main flavour.
Oatmeal
Softens during the long boil and releases starch, giving the soup body.
Milk
Adds richness and a smoother, creamier texture to the soup.
Butter
Enriches the soup with fat and helps form the thickening roux.
Flour
Its starch thickens the soup when cooked with butter and stirred in.

The step that matters

Thicken with butter and flour cooked together. Cooking flour in fat, a roux, coats the starch granules so they disperse without clumping. Adding raw flour directly tends to leave lumps and a raw, pasty taste.

“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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