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Parker House Soup

A beef stock soup thickened with butter, flour, and a pint of hot soup, seasoned with pepper, salt, and sugar, optionally with tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Parker House Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Strain the beef stock through a colander.

  2. Heat the butter in a pan until light brown. Remove from heat.

  3. Sift in the flour, mixing well. Add 1 pint of the hot soup and pour the mixture into the stock.

Season and cook

  1. Season with pepper, salt, and sugar.

  2. Place on the fire and stir until it boils.

  3. Boil, then skim for 5 minutes.

  4. If using, add the tomatoes. Strain before adding.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Browned in the pan, it adds a nutty, rich flavour to the soup.
Flour
Mixed with the butter and hot soup, it thickens the liquid into a smooth body.
Beef stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup, giving it its main savoury flavour.
Sugar
Adds a small amount of sweetness that balances the savoury stock.

The step that matters

Heating the butter until light brown. Butter browns quickly once its milk solids start to toast, so it can scorch and turn bitter if left unattended. Removing it from heat at the right colour gives a nutty flavour without burnt notes.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, flour, pepper, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour, pepper, sugar. 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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