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Artichoke Soup

A creamy soup of artichokes, onions, and milk, finished with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Artichoke Soup

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Artichoke Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel and slice the onions, then soak them in cold water.

  2. Bring the water to a boil quickly and boil the onions for 3 minutes, then drain.

Make the soup

  1. Boil the artichokes with the onions and sugar in the milk until tender.

  2. Pass the mixture through a sieve, then return it to the saucepan with bay leaves and pepper.

  3. Simmer for 30 minutes, then add the cream just before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with croutons.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Artichoke + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Artichoke + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the soup and gives it a smooth, creamy body.
Artichokes
Provide the main flavour and, once cooked and sieved, the body of the soup.
Onions
Add savoury depth and aroma to the soup base.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture when stirred in at the end.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness that balances the vegetables.

The step that matters

Adding the cream just before serving. Cream held at a long boil can separate or turn grainy and thin the flavour. Adding it after the simmer, just before serving, keeps it smooth and rich.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, artichoke, cream, sugar, pepper):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, artichoke, cream, sugar, 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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