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Parsnip Soup

A creamy soup made from parsnips, onion, celery, butter, milk, and wheatmeal, finished with vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsnip and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 561 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Parsnip Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Scrape and finely chop the parsnips, celery, and onion.

  2. In a pot, combine the chopped vegetables, water, butter, pepper, and salt.

  3. Cook over medium heat until the vegetables are tender.

Finish the soup

  1. Pass the mixture through a sieve to create a smooth soup.

  2. Return the soup to the pot, add the milk and wheatmeal, and bring to a boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Before serving, stir in the vinegar, if desired.

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 + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together561 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Parsnips
Provide the main body and sweet, earthy flavor of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor from the vegetables into the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the soup's texture.
Allinson fine wheatmeal
Thickens the soup as it heats with milk, giving it body.
Vinegar
Adds a light acidity that brightens the sweetness of the vegetables.

The step that matters

Passing the cooked vegetables through a sieve. Vegetables must be fully tender before sieving, or the purée stays grainy and lumpy. Cooking them until soft lets the fibres break down so the soup becomes smooth.

Swap the parsnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, celery, butter, milk, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, celery, butter, milk, vinegar, pepper. 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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