Skip to main content
Main

Palestine Soup

A creamy soup made from Jerusalem artichokes, onions, celery, and stock, finished with cream and served with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Palestine Soup

Why it works: Jerusalem artichoke and celery share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 75 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Palestine Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the Jerusalem artichokes and place them in cold water to prevent discoloration.

  2. Combine the artichokes, onions, celery, and white stock in a saucepan.

  3. Simmer gently for 1 hour.

  4. Remove the onions and celery.

Make the soup

  1. Press the artichokes through a fine sieve.

  2. Return the puree to the saucepan.

  3. Heat the puree until hot.

  4. Stir in the boiling cream (or cream and milk mixture).

  5. Season with salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg.

  6. Simmer for 1-2 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately with fried bread on the side.

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. Jerusalem artichoke + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together75 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Jerusalem artichoke + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Jerusalem artichokes
Provide the main body and starchy, earthy flavour of the soup once pureed.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock during simmering.
White stock
Supplies the liquid that cooks the vegetables and forms the soup base.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the pureed soup a smooth, velvety texture.

The step that matters

Keep the artichokes in cold water after peeling. Peeled Jerusalem artichokes oxidise and darken quickly when exposed to air. Cold water slows this browning, keeping the soup's colour pale and appealing.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (jerusalem artichoke, celery, cream, pepper, nutmeg, bread):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against jerusalem artichoke, celery, cream, pepper, nutmeg, 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes