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Soup

Mai6re Soup

A soup of sorrel, onion, milk and water, thickened with flour and enriched with egg yolks, served over French roll crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sorrel and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 231 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mai6re Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  2. Add the diced onions and fry gently without browning.

  3. Add the sorrel ribbons and flour to the stewpan and mix well.

  4. Pour in the milk and water.

  5. Bring to a boil and stir continuously for 20 minutes.

  6. Season with sugar and salt.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat.

  2. Quickly stir in the egg yolks mixed with cream or milk, making sure it does not boil.

  3. Place the French roll crust strips in a tureen.

  4. Pour the soup over the crust and serve hot.

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. Sorrel + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together231 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Onion + sorreltop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together459 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Sorrel
Gives the soup its fresh, tangy, lemony flavour and green colour.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Butter
Carries the onion flavour and adds richness to the soup base.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks with the milk and water.
Milk
Adds body and mild richness, softening the sorrel's sharpness.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat; if the soup boils after they go in, they can curdle and turn grainy. Removing it from the heat first and stirring quickly keeps the texture smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sorrel, flour, milk, sugar, egg, cream):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sorrel, flour, milk, sugar, egg, cream. 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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