Skip to main content
Soup

White Soup

A creamy soup made with turnips, leeks, celery, ham, stock, milk, and bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine turnips, leeks, celery, butter, and ham in a saucepan.

  2. Add stock and simmer until the vegetables are tender.

  3. Stir in milk and small pieces of bread.

  4. Bring to a boil 2 or 3 times.

  5. Strain and serve hot.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Butter + milktop 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

Turnips
Provide the bulk of the soup and a mild, slightly sweet vegetable body.
Leeks
Add a mild onion-like aroma and soften into the soup's base.
Celery
Adds aromatic depth and body as it softens during simmering.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a smooth, rich texture to the soup.
Bread
Thickens the soup slightly and adds body as it breaks down.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil 2 or 3 times. Milk can scorch or curdle if it sits at a hard boil on the base of the pan. Stir often and keep the heat controlled so the soup stays smooth and creamy rather than grainy or burnt.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, leek, butter, ham, milk, bread):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, leek, butter, ham, milk, bread. 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.

More white soup recipes

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

You might also like

Cream of CeleryCream of Celery37 recipesIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipes