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Mushroom Soup

A creamy soup made with milk, cream, mushrooms, butter, flour, salt, pepper, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Mushroom Soup

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Mushroom Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream base

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Melt the butter, then stir in the flour, salt, and pepper.

  3. Add this mixture to the hot milk and cook for ten minutes.

  4. Stir in the beaten egg yolks and cream, cooking for an additional five minutes.

Cook the mushrooms and serve

  1. Peel the mushrooms, remove the stems, and break them into small pieces.

  2. Place the mushrooms in a saucepan with just enough hot water to prevent sticking and cook for five minutes.

  3. Add the cooked mushrooms to the cream soup and serve.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture.
Mushrooms
Provide the main flavor and substance of the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and is cooked with the flour to start the thickening.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks with the butter and hot milk.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup as they cook into the cream base.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks thicken by coagulating when heated, so if the mixture gets too hot or boils, it can curdle or turn grainy. Keep the heat moderate and cook gently.

“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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