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Soup

Delicate Soup

A creamy soup made from sautéed onions, stock, roux, cream, and green peppers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Delicate Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Cook the sliced onions in butter over medium heat for 10 minutes.

  2. Add chicken stock and simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a separate pan, melt 2½ tablespoons of butter and mix with 2½ tablespoons of flour to create a roux.

  2. Add the roux to the strained stock.

  3. Stir in the cream or rich milk, and season with salt and pepper.

  4. Just before serving, stir in the chopped green peppers.

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

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

  2. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Onions
Sweetness and savory body as they cook slowly in butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries the onion flavor into the soup.
Flour
Thickens the stock when cooked with butter into a roux.
Chicken stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup.
Cream or rich milk
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture.

The step that matters

Adding the roux to the strained stock. Flour thickens only when its starch is hydrated and heated, so the roux should be fully blended and the stock hot enough to avoid lumps and a floury taste.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, chicken, flour, cream, 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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