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Parsnip Soup

A soup made from parsnips, onion, and water, optionally flavored with sugar browning and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsnip and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,054 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Parsnip Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the parsnips.

  2. Chop the parsnips.

  3. Peel the onion.

  4. Chop the onion.

Cook

  1. In a pot, combine the parsnips, onion, and water.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Simmer for 4 hours until the parsnips are soft.

  4. Stir the soup frequently to prevent burning.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the soup through a fine sieve.

  2. Remove the parsley from the sieve.

  3. Rub the remaining mixture through the sieve into a basin.

  4. Keep a small portion of the liquid hot to moisten the pulp as needed.

  5. Boil the soup again before serving.

  6. Add a few drops of sugar browning for color, if desired.

  7. Optionally, stir in a cup of boiling milk before serving.

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. Parsnip + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,054 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  3. Parsnip + milktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together322 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  4. Onion + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Parsnip + sugartop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together190 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Parsnips
Form the main body of the soup, and their starch and sugars thicken it and give it sweetness as they soften.
Onion
Adds aroma and savory depth as it softens in the cooking liquid.
Milk
Adds richness and a smoother, creamier mouthfeel through its fat and milk proteins.

The step that matters

Stir frequently during the long simmer. Parsnips contain starch and sugars that settle on the bottom of the pot over four hours and scorch easily, which gives a burnt taste to the whole batch. Regular stirring keeps the mixture moving and the base from sticking.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsnip, sugar, milk):

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsnip, sugar, milk. 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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