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Mushroom Soup

A creamy soup made with onions, butter, flour, water, salt, bouquet garni, beef extract, mushrooms, egg yolks, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Mushroom Soup

Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Mushroom Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Melt the butter over medium heat and add the chopped onion.

  2. Cook for 5 minutes.

  3. Stir in the flour and cook for a few minutes.

  4. Add the boiling water, salt, and bouquet garni.

  5. Cover and boil for 20 minutes.

  6. Strain the soup and return it to the saucepan.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the beef extract and mushrooms and cook for 15 minutes.

  2. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks with the cream.

  3. Slowly add this mixture to the soup, stirring constantly.

  4. Taste and add more salt if necessary.

  5. 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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

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

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the soup and add richness when combined with cream and heated gently.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the texture of the soup.
Butter
Carries the onion's flavour and adds richness at the start of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly when cooked briefly with the butter and onion.
Button mushrooms
Provide the main earthy flavour and body of the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream mixture. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they meet hot liquid too quickly. Adding the mixture slowly while stirring constantly tempers it, so the soup thickens smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, beef, mushroom, egg, cream):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, beef, mushroom, egg, cream. 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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