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Soups, Broths, Purees

A creamy onion soup thickened with flour, 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: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Soups, Broths, Purees

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel and slice the onions. Boil the slices in water for 15 minutes, then drain and rinse with cold water.

  2. In a pan, melt the butter and sweat the onions with pepper, salt, and nutmeg for 15 minutes.

  3. Add the stock to the onions and cook until tender.

Make the sauce and finish

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour with ½ cup of milk until smooth.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the remaining milk and cream, then stir in the flour mixture and heat until it boils.

  3. Add the milk mixture to the stock and onions, and let simmer for 10 minutes.

  4. Strain the soup through a fine sieve and reheat gently without boiling. Adjust salt if needed.

  5. Serve with fried bread.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Provide the main flavour and body of the soup as they soften and sweeten.
Butter
Carries the sweating onions and adds richness to the soup.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the milk and cream mixture so the soup becomes smooth and velvety.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, and helps thicken the soup with the flour.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished soup.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the onion flavour.

The step that matters

Heating the flour mixture. Once the flour and milk mixture boils, it thickens; heating it gently and stirring prevents lumps. Reheating the finished soup without boiling keeps the cream from curdling or separating.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, nutmeg, flour, milk, cream, bread):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, nutmeg, flour, milk, cream, bread. 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

French 31Brown 15with Milk 7White 5Bavarian 4Bermuda 4 See all 236 →

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