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Onion Soup Maigre

A light onion soup made with onions, potatoes, rice, butter, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Onion Soup Maigre

Ingredients

Directions

Make the onion base

  1. Parboil the onions for 10 minutes, then drain and let cool.

  2. Slice the onions and place them in a pot with the cold water; boil until reduced to 3 pints.

  3. Strain the mixture and rub it through a colander, then return to the pot.

Finish the soup

  1. When it boils, add the mashed potatoes, butter, parsley, and season with salt and pepper; simmer for 10 minutes.

  2. Boil the rice in the milk with a pinch of baking soda, strain, and add to the soup.

  3. Cook gently for 5 minutes, then pour into a tureen and add the boiling milk before serving.

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

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

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Potato + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together851 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Break down during long cooking to give the soup its body and a mellow sweetness.
Potatoes
Their starch thickens the soup and gives it a smooth, creamy body.
Rice
Its starch adds further body and softness to the soup as it cooks in milk.
Milk
Adds richness and a soft, mild flavor to the finished soup.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a rounded flavor, and helps thicken when rolled in flour.

The step that matters

Reducing the onions to 3 pints. Boiling the onions in water concentrates their flavor and builds the soup's body. Stopping at the right volume keeps the soup from tasting thin or watery later in the recipe.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, rice, milk, butter, flour, parsley, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, rice, milk, butter, flour, 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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