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Salsify or Oyster Plant Soup

A creamy soup made from sliced salsify, milk, butter, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Salsify or Oyster Plant Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salsify

  1. Scrape the salsify and cut it into slices.

  2. Cover the salsify with 1 pint of boiling water and boil slowly for 1 hour.

Make the soup

  1. Add the milk without draining the water.

  2. Rub the butter and flour together, then stir into the soup.

  3. Stir continually until the soup boils.

  4. Add the allspice and mace.

  5. Let the soup stand on the back of the stove for 10 minutes.

  6. Season with salt and pepper, then 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.

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 + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Salsify
Forms the main body of the soup and gives its distinctive flavour and texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and creamy richness of the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and combines with the flour to thicken the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it body.

The step that matters

Stir continually until the soup boils. Flour mixed into hot liquid can clump if left unstirred. Constant stirring disperses the starch so it thickens the soup smoothly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, pepper, allspice. 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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