Skip to main content

Soups

Ensure milk is fresh to prevent curdling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Soups

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare your vegetables by washing and chopping them.

  2. In a pot, combine the vegetables with white stock and bring to a simmer.

  3. Add fresh milk and season with white pepper.

  4. Do not add butter while cooking; instead, place a lump of butter in the serving tureen before pouring in the soup.

  5. Serve immediately.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. White pepper + vealtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + vealtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Milk + vealtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. White pepper + buttertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, veal):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, veal. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

You might also like

Indian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipesCream of Asparagus SoupCream of Asparagus Soup42 recipes