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Soup

Artichoke Soup

A soup made with Jerusalem artichokes, white turnip, red onion, bacon, stock, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Artichoke Soup

Why it works: Turnip and jerusalem artichoke share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 74 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Artichoke Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Fry the turnip, onion, artichokes, and bacon in the butter for about 10 minutes.

  3. Gradually add 1 pint of stock and let it boil until the vegetables are thoroughly cooked.

  4. Add 3 more pints of stock, stir well, and season with salt and pepper.

  5. Strain and press the vegetables through a sieve.

  6. Add 1 pint of boiling milk and boil for 5 more minutes 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.

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. Turnip + jerusalem artichoketop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together74 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Onion + jerusalem artichoketop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together140 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Jerusalem artichokes
Form the main body of the soup and thicken it as they break down.
Butter
Fat that softens the vegetables and carries flavour during frying.
Milk
Adds creaminess and smooths the texture at the end.
Stock
Provides the liquid that cooks the vegetables and forms the soup base.
Red onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens in the butter.

The step that matters

Pressing the vegetables through a sieve. Cooked artichokes must be fully tender before straining, or the purée turns grainy and stays lumpy. Pressing breaks cell walls so the starch and fibre form a smooth, thick texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, turnip, jerusalem artichoke, milk, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, turnip, jerusalem artichoke, milk, 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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