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Jackson Soup

A thickened soup of potatoes, ham, onion, celery, and milk, finished with butter, egg yolk, and toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Jackson Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Fry the sliced potatoes lightly in 2 ounces of butter.

  2. Add the minced ham, sliced onion, sliced celery, parsley, nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

  3. Add just enough stock to moisten the mixture and simmer for 45 minutes.

Finish the soup

  1. Pass the mixture through a sieve into 1 pint of white stock.

  2. Stir in 1 pint of boiling milk, 2 ounces of butter, and the egg yolk thoroughly.

  3. Add tiny squares of toast and serve immediately.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  5. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 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

Potatoes
Break down during simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and dilutes the soup into a smooth, pourable consistency.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the soup when stirred in gently with the hot liquid.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens through gentle heat. If the soup is too hot when the yolk goes in, it can curdle or scramble, so it should be mixed in thoroughly while the liquid is hot but not boiling.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, ham, onion, celery, parsley, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, ham, onion, celery, parsley, 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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