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Italian Soup

A creamy Italian soup made with cornmeal, butter, stock, and egg yolk, finished with Parmesan and croutons.

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 ↓

Italian Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Cook the cornmeal with butter and white stock for 1 hour.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Add chopped parsley.

  4. Stir and strain the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Blend the egg yolk with hot milk.

  2. Add the blended mixture to the strained soup.

  3. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese and croutons.

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. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Fine cornmeal (semolina)
Forms the body of the soup as it cooks down into a thick, smooth texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the soup.
White stock
Provides the liquid that the cornmeal cooks and swells in, giving the soup its base flavor.
Egg yolk
Thickens and enriches the soup when blended with hot milk and added at the end.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness, and its gentle heat helps the yolk blend in smoothly.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and milk. If the hot milk and yolk mixture is added to soup that is too hot or boiling, the egg can scramble and leave lumps. Blending the yolk with warm milk first and adding it off the heat keeps the soup smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (semolina, butter, pepper, nutmeg, egg, milk, parmesan cheese):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against semolina, butter, pepper, nutmeg, egg, milk, parmesan cheese. 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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