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Mushroom Soup

A creamy soup made with mushrooms, butter, milk, and optional asparagus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Mushroom Soup

Why it works: Mushroom and asparagus match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 400 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Mushroom Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan and add mushrooms with a little water.

  2. Cook slowly for about 45 minutes.

Make the milk base

  1. Heat the milk and season to taste.

  2. Thicken the milk with cornstarch until it resembles cream.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the cooked mushrooms to the thickened milk and serve.

  2. If using asparagus, cook it separately for 20 minutes before adding to the soup.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Mushroom + asparagustop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together400 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

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

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Mushroom + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Milk + asparagustop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together650 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Release moisture and savory flavor as they cook down into the soup's body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps soften the mushrooms as they cook.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that gives the soup its smooth body.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the soup a creamy, cream-like consistency.

The step that matters

Cook the mushrooms slowly. Gentle heat lets mushrooms release their liquid and brown slightly, concentrating flavor. Rushing over high heat can scorch the butter and leave the mushrooms tough and bland.

Swap the asparagus

The recipe marks asparagus as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, butter, milk):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusthe original
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, 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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