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Duchess Soup

A creamy vegetable soup made with carrot, onion, stock, mace, butter, flour, milk, and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Duchess Soup

Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Duchess Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Cook the carrot and onion in 1 tablespoon of butter for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the white stock and mace, then cook for 15 minutes.

Make the soup

  1. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a separate pan.

  2. Stir in 2 tablespoons of flour until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the seasoned stock, salt, and pepper.

  4. Stir in the milk or cream and cook for 2 minutes.

  5. Add the grated cheese and serve.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

White stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the flavour of the vegetables and mace.
Flour
Thickens the butter into a roux that gives the soup body.
Milk or thin cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the soup.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and richness at the end of cooking.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, and forms the roux with the flour.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the melted butter until smooth. Flour must be cooked briefly in fat before liquid is added; stirring until smooth keeps it from clumping, so the stock thickens evenly without lumps.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, butter, veal, flour, pepper, milk. 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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