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Caramel and Browned Flour for Soups

A caramelized sugar mixture and browned flour used as a thickening agent in soups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Caramel and Browned Flour for Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Combine 1 teacup sugar and 2 teaspoons water in a saucepan over medium heat and stir constantly until the mixture turns dark brown.

  2. Add ½ teacup water and a pinch of salt, then boil for a few moments.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool before bottling.

Brown the flour

  1. For browned flour, place 1 pint of flour in a saucepan over medium heat and stir constantly until it turns dark brown, being careful not to burn it.

  2. Once cooled, store in a tightly covered tin can or jar in a dry place.

Use in soup

  1. For soup, add cloves to the meat or fry it in butter until browned.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Clove + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Caramelizes as it heats, giving the mixture its dark brown colour and deep flavour.
Flour
Browns slowly on dry heat, producing a toasted colour and nutty aroma for colouring and flavouring.

The step that matters

Browning the flour. Flour can scorch quickly once it darkens, so constant stirring over medium heat is needed to brown it evenly without burning, which would leave a bitter taste.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, butter, onion):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, onion. 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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