Skip to main content
Main

Artichoke Soup

A soup made from boiled artichokes, turnip, onions, milk, butter or cream, seasoned with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Artichoke Soup

Why it works: Artichoke and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 140 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Artichoke Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the vegetables thoroughly in cold water, using two changes of water.

  2. Peel the vegetables and place them in boiling water.

Cook and strain

  1. Boil for 1.5 hours.

  2. Strain the mixture and rub it through a sieve.

Finish

  1. Add the milk and season with pepper and salt 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.

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. Artichoke + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together140 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Artichoke + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Artichokes
Provide the main body and flavor of the soup once cooked and sieved.
Turnip
Adds body and a mild, slightly sweet flavor to the soup.
Onions
Contribute aroma and a gentle sweetness as they soften in the liquid.
Milk
Adds richness and a smoother, creamier texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Boil for 1.5 hours. The vegetables must be fully tender so they break down easily when rubbed through the sieve. Undercooked pieces stay fibrous and leave the soup grainy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, turnip, milk, butter, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, turnip, milk, butter, 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.

More artichoke soup recipes

Jerusalem 55Brown 3 See all 70 →

You might also like

Turnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes