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Mushroom Soup

A hearty soup of mushrooms, onions, and brown haricots simmered in butter and water, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Mushroom Soup

Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Mushroom Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the brown haricots in boiling water overnight.

  2. Peel and wash the onions, then add them to a pan of boiling water with the haricots.

  3. Peel, clean, and fry the mushrooms in butter.

Cook and finish

  1. Add the fried mushrooms to the saucepan with the other ingredients.

  2. Boil everything for 1.5 hours.

  3. Strain the mixture, rubbing it through a sieve.

  4. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt 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.

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

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

  2. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide the main earthy flavour and body of the soup.
Brown haricots
Thicken the soup as they soften and break down during long boiling.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the soup base.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when frying the mushrooms.

The step that matters

Rubbing the mixture through a sieve. Pressing the cooked beans, onions and mushrooms through a sieve breaks them into fine pieces that give the soup a smooth, thick texture. Skipping or rushing this leaves the soup grainy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, 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.

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