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Artichoke Puree Soup

A creamy soup made from boiled artichokes, butter, stock, and seasonings, served with butter and fried bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Artichoke Puree Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the artichokes

  1. Peel the artichokes and cut them into quarters.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter over low heat.

  3. Add the artichokes, season with salt, pepper, and sugar, and cook until they turn light in color.

  4. Add enough white stock broth to cover the artichokes, along with the faggot of parsley and onions.

  5. Cover the saucepan and cook until the artichokes are tender.

Make the soup

  1. Stir in the thickened chicken or veal broth and let it boil slowly for 30 minutes.

  2. Remove the faggot of parsley and onions, skim the soup, and strain it through a fine sieve.

  3. Return the soup to the saucepan to keep warm.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, stir in a piece of butter until melted.

  2. Serve with small fried bread crumbs on the side.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Artichoke + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together524 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  4. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Artichokes
Form the main body of the soup, becoming tender and then puréed into a smooth texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel, and carries flavour when melted at the start and finish.
Thickened chicken or veal broth
Supplies the liquid base and savoury body that the puréed artichokes are carried in.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and depth to the stock while the soup simmers.

The step that matters

Cooking the artichokes until they turn light in color. Cooking gently over low heat in butter keeps the artichokes from browning or taking on bitterness, so the finished soup stays pale and mild.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, butter, pepper, sugar, parsley, chicken, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, butter, pepper, sugar, parsley, chicken, 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.

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