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Cream of Onion Soup

A creamy soup made from simmered onions, stock, roux, milk, egg white, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Onion Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Simmer the minced onion in the stock for 1 hour.

  2. Rub the mixture through a fine colander and return it to the heat.

  3. Stir in the white roux gradually into the hot soup.

Finish the soup

  1. In another saucepan, heat the milk with a pinch of baking soda.

  2. Add the heated milk to the soup and beat in the frothed egg white.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and minced parsley.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Onion
Gives the soup its main flavour and body once simmered and rubbed through.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the onion flavour through the soup.
White roux
Thickens the soup as it is stirred into the hot liquid.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy texture to the finished soup.
Egg white
Beaten in to add a light, frothy texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring in the white roux gradually. Adding roux all at once into hot liquid can form lumps, because starch granules clump before they disperse. Adding it gradually while stirring lets the starch hydrate evenly and thicken the soup smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, milk, egg, pepper, parsley):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, milk, egg, pepper, parsley. 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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