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White Soup

A clear soup made from white stock, milk, onions, mace, herbs, thickened with cornflour, served with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock base

  1. Stew the onions, mace, and herbs in the stock for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the soup.

Thicken and finish

  1. Mix the cornflour and milk evenly.

  2. Add the cornflour mixture, pepper, and salt to the cool soup.

  3. Bring the soup to a boil.

Serve

  1. Serve with diced bread fried in deep fat.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

White stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the soup's flavour.
Milk
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the soup.
Cornflour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells when heated.
Onions
Provide savoury sweetness and depth as they stew in the stock.

The step that matters

Adding the cornflour mixture to the soup. Cornflour must be mixed smoothly with the milk first, because dry starch clumps when it hits hot liquid. Starch thickens only once it reaches a boil, so the soup should be brought to a boil after adding it to fully thicken.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, onion, thyme, marjoram, parsley, pepper. 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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