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Jerusalem Artichoke Soup

A soup of onion, potato, artichokes, stock, milk, butter, and flour, served with toasted bread cubes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Jerusalem Artichoke Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Combine onion, potato, artichokes, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Fry the mixture for 8 minutes without browning.

  3. Add white stock, salt, pepper, bay leaf, parsley, and mace.

  4. Simmer for 1.5 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Rub the mixture through a sieve using the back of a wooden spoon.

  2. Return the soup to the saucepan.

  3. Stir in milk, butter, and flour mixture.

  4. Serve with toasted bread cubes.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Artichoke + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together524 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potato
Starch that thickens the soup and gives it a smooth, creamy body when sieved.
Artichokes
Main flavour and body of the soup, breaking down during long simmering.
Butter
Fat that carries flavour and enriches the soup when cooked gently and stirred in at the end.
Milk
Adds richness and a softer, creamier texture to the finished soup.
Flour
Thickens the finished soup, giving it a slightly fuller body.

The step that matters

Fry without browning. Frying the vegetables gently in butter softens them and builds flavour. Browning would add bitter, toasted notes that clash with the delicate artichoke flavour.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, potato, artichoke, butter, pepper, parsley, milk):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, potato, artichoke, butter, pepper, parsley, 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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