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Soup

Soup, & LA Flamande

A Flemish soup of onions, celery and potatoes simmered in butter and stock, sieved, and finished with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 9,019 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare and soften

  1. Slice the onions, celery, and potatoes.

  2. Put the onions, celery and potatoes into a stewpan with the butter and water.

  3. Simmer for 1 hour.

Cook the soup

  1. Fill up the stewpan with stock.

  2. Boil gently until the potatoes are done, about 1 hour.

Strain and finish

  1. Rub all through a fine sieve.

  2. Add the previously boiled cream.

  3. Do not let it boil after adding the cream.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Onion + potatotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,019 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

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

  3. Celery + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,045 recipes

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together18,506 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Potato + buttertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,445 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Starch from the potatoes thickens the soup and gives it a smooth, full body.
Onions
Softening in butter builds a sweet, savory base flavor.
Celery
Adds a fresh, aromatic vegetable flavor that defines the soup.
Butter
Fat carries flavor and adds richness to the softened vegetables.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Do not let it boil after adding the cream.. High heat can cause the dairy proteins in cream to curdle or separate, leaving the soup grainy instead of smooth and velvety.

Flavor stand-ins for the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, potato, butter, cream):

  1. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  2. Celerythe original
  3. Parsleyabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Thymeabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, potato, butter, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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