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Mushroom Soup

A creamy soup made with milk, cream, butter, flour, and fresh mushrooms, optionally enriched with egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Mushroom Soup

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Mushroom Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Melt the butter, then stir in the flour, salt, and pepper.

  3. Stir this mixture into the hot milk and cook for ten minutes.

  4. Add the beaten yolks and cream, stirring and cooking for five more minutes.

Cook the mushrooms and serve

  1. Peel the mushrooms, remove the stems, and break them into small pieces.

  2. Place the mushrooms in a saucepan with just enough hot water to prevent sticking and cook for five minutes.

  3. Add the cooked mushrooms to the cream soup and serve.

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

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

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

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Milk + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier texture to the soup.
Fresh mushrooms
Provide the main flavor and body of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy base when cooked with butter.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, and forms the roux with the flour.
Egg yolks
Enrich and further thicken the soup as they cook gently.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten yolks and cream. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if the soup is too hot or boiling. Stirring constantly over gentle heat keeps the custard-like mixture smooth and thickened.

“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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