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A Good White Soup

A light white soup made with stock, butter, flour, milk, bread crumbs, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

A Good White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Skim the stock.

  2. Heat the stock, seasoning to taste.

  3. Strain the stock through thin muslin.

  4. Return the strained stock to the fire.

  5. Skim the stock again.

Make the soup

  1. Add the butter cut into the flour.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Combine the hot milk with the soaked bread crumbs in a tureen.

  4. Beat in the egg whites.

  5. Gradually stir the soup into the mixture.

Serve

  1. 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

Stock
Forms the flavorful liquid base of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor, and with flour it helps thicken the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter into a smooth base.
Milk
Adds moisture and creamy body to the soup.
Bread crumbs
Soak up liquid and give the soup body and a soft texture.
Egg whites
Beaten in, they add lightness and set slightly with heat.

The step that matters

Gradually stir the soup into the mixture. Adding the hot liquid slowly lets the mixture warm evenly, so the egg whites and thickened starch blend smoothly instead of clumping or curdling.

“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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Stock 28Swiss 18Westerfield 14Veal 5Rich 4Plain 3 See all 83 →

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