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Watercress Soup

A soup made from watercress, white stock, flour, cream or butter, served with toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Watercress and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 340 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Watercress Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the watercress

  1. Thoroughly wash and drain the watercress to remove excess moisture.

  2. Break up any long sprigs of watercress.

Make the soup

  1. Place the watercress in an enamelled saucepan with the white stock.

  2. Simmer until the watercress is almost dissolved.

  3. Thicken the soup with flour and add cream or butter.

Serve

  1. Serve with snips of toast.

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. Watercress + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together340 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  3. Watercress + creamtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together211 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Watercress shoots
Provide the main green flavour and, as they break down, body to the soup.
White stock
Forms the liquid base and carries the flavour of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup by swelling in the hot liquid to give it body.
Cream or butter
Adds fat for a richer, smoother mouthfeel and softer flavour.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with flour and add cream or butter. Flour must be cooked in hot liquid to swell and thicken evenly; if it is added raw or in lumps it stays grainy. Adding cream or butter after thickening keeps the fat fresh and smooth rather than letting it split under long boiling.

“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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