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Onion Soup

A hearty soup made with onions, veal bone or chicken, milk, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Onion Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, boil the onions with the veal bone or chicken for about 3 hours.

  2. Remove the bone or chicken from the pot.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the milk, flour, and butter to the pot.

  2. Leave the onions in the soup and cook for an additional 15 minutes.

  3. 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

Onions
Cook down over long simmering to add sweetness and body to the broth.
Veal bone or chicken
Releases meaty flavor and gelatin into the liquid, giving the soup depth and body.
Water
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavors of the onions and bone.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells when heated in the liquid.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the texture and carries flavor.

The step that matters

Add the milk, flour, and butter to the pot.. Flour thickens only when its starch is evenly dispersed in the liquid and heated, so it should be mixed in well to avoid lumps and a floury taste.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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