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Mushroom Soup

A creamy soup made with mushrooms, flour, butter, water, cream, and chicken stock, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Mushroom Soup

Why it works: Mushroom and chicken 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash, scrub, and thoroughly clean the mushrooms, then chop them coarsely.

  2. Cook the mushrooms in the water until tender.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a pot, add the flour and chicken stock, and cook for five minutes.

  2. Add the mushroom mixture, season with salt and pepper, and stir in the cream.

Finish and serve

  1. Reheat the soup and serve.

  2. Strain before reheating if preferred.

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. Mushroom + chickentop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Mushrooms
Provide the main body, earthy flavor, and texture of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter and stock.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and forms the base for the flour.
Chicken stock
Provides the liquid base and savory flavor of the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cooking the butter and flour together. Cooking the flour in melted butter for a full five minutes removes its raw taste and lets its starch thicken the stock evenly. Adding the stock too early or skipping this cooking can leave the soup tasting floury or lumpy.

“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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