Skip to main content
Main

Parsnip Soup

A soup made from parsnips, onions, and lentil flour, seasoned with browning sauce, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsnip and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 669 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Parsnip Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine the chopped parsnips and onions with boiling water.

  2. Cook until tender, then strain through a sieve back into the pot.

  3. Mix the lentil flour with a little water, then pour into the soup while stirring to prevent lumps.

  4. Add a few drops of browning sauce and season with salt and pepper to taste.

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 + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together669 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Parsnip + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma as they soften in the broth.
Lentil flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells in the hot liquid.

The step that matters

Mixing the lentil flour into the soup. Flour clumps when dropped into hot liquid unmixed because its outer layer hydrates before the inside does. Mixing it with a little water first to make a smooth slurry, then stirring it in, disperses the particles so the soup thickens evenly without lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsnip, flour, sauce, pepper):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsnip, flour, sauce, 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.

You might also like

Parsnip CakesParsnip Cakes12 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes