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Mushroom Soup with Cream

A soup made from chicken stock, mushrooms, and a cream mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Mushroom Soup with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the chicken with the grated onion in 1 gallon of water until reduced to ½ gallon.

  2. Strain the broth and add the mushrooms; boil for 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. In a separate pot, heat the milk and thicken it with the butter and flour mixture.

  2. Before serving, combine the thickened milk with the soup.

  3. Serve hot, topped with whipped cream.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

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

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

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

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter and flour
Together they form a roux that thickens the milk into a creamy base.
Milk
Provides the creamy body and mild sweetness of the soup base.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavor and substance to the broth.
Chicken
Gives the broth its savory, meaty flavor as it simmers.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked into the butter to form a roux; otherwise it stays grainy or lumpy and does not thicken smoothly when the milk is added.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, cream, onion, milk, butter, flour, mushroom):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, cream, onion, milk, butter, flour, mushroom. 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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