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Soup

Vegetable Marrow Soup

A soup made with vegetable marrow, onions, milk, flour, fat, pepper, salt, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Vegetable Marrow Soup

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Vegetable Marrow Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the vegetable marrow and onions.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, melt the fat and sauté the onions until soft.

  2. Add the chopped marrow and cook for a few minutes.

  3. Pour in the milk and bring to a simmer.

  4. Stir in the flour to thicken the soup.

  5. Season with pepper and salt, and add parsley before serving.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Vegetable marrow
Forms the main body of the soup, providing bulk and a mild, tender texture when cooked.
Milk
Adds creaminess and richness to the liquid base of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it body.
Onions
Soften in the fat to add savoury sweetness and aroma as the base flavour.
Fat
Carries the onion's flavour and helps soften the onions evenly before the liquid is added.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour to thicken the soup. Flour added to hot liquid can clump if not stirred in well. Whisking it smoothly into the simmering milk and soup lets its starch swell evenly, giving a smooth, thick result.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, pepper, parsley. 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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