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Onion Soup

A creamy onion soup made with onions, butter, water, milk, eggs, cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Onion Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a pan, fry the chopped onions in butter until light brown.

  2. Add boiling water and milk, then season with salt, pepper, mace, and sugar.

  3. Boil slowly for 1 hour, then strain the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the eggs until foamy, then mix in the cream and cornstarch dissolved in cold water.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil once, then 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.

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

White onions
Provide the main body and sweet flavor as they soften and brown in butter.
Eggs
Thicken the soup as they set with gentle heat and add richness.
Cream
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture and mellows the flavor.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid so the soup becomes smoother and more body-rich.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the broth.

The step that matters

Bring the mixture to a boil once. Eggs and cornstarch are in the mixture at this point. Boiling only once is enough to thicken the starch, while boiling longer or harder can curdle the egg proteins and make the soup grainy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

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

More onion soup recipes

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