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Flemish Soup

A creamy soup of onions, celery, potatoes, ham, and cream, finished with egg yolks and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Flemish Soup

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Flemish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and cook the ham until browned.

  2. Add the onions, celery, and potatoes to the saucepan.

  3. Pour in the white stock and let it boil gently until the potatoes dissolve.

  4. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve, adding the soaked French roll crumb.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the boiled cream and beaten egg yolks.

  2. Before serving, work in a little fresh butter.

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

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

  2. Celery + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 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

Potatoes
Break down during simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Egg yolks
Enrich the soup and thicken it slightly when stirred in.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
French roll
Soaked crumb that adds body and helps thicken the sieved soup.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavour, both for browning the ham and for finishing.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but can curdle or scramble if the soup is boiling. Add them off the heat or over low heat, stirring constantly, so the soup stays smooth and creamy.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, potato, butter, ham, cream, egg):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, potato, butter, ham, cream, egg. 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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