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Brown Soup

A stock-based soup with onion, herbs, wine, and fried bread pieces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Brown Soup

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Brown Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine the stock, minced onion, and fine herbs.

  2. Bring to a boil and season with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Once done, stir in the cooking wine.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup over the fried bread pieces.

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

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

  2. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + winetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,066 recipes

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

  5. Onion + winetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,784 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stock
Forms the liquid base and carries most of the savory flavor of the soup.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens in the hot broth.
Cooking wine
Adds acidity and aromatic complexity to the broth.
Fried bread
Provides browned, crisp texture that softens as it soaks up the broth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, wine, bread):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, wine, 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.

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