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Swiss White Soup

A light soup made by adding a beaten egg, flour, and milk mixture to boiling broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Swiss White Soup

Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Swiss White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, bring a rich broth or soup to a boil.

  2. In a bowl, beat together the eggs, flour, and milk.

  3. Slowly pour the egg mixture through a sieve into the boiling soup.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Set into soft ribbons in the hot soup, thickening it and adding richness.
Flour
Helps stabilize the egg mixture and gives the soup a slightly thicker body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and moisture, softening the richness of the eggs.

The step that matters

Slowly pour the egg mixture through a sieve into the boiling soup. Pouring slowly and straining through a sieve breaks the egg into fine, even ribbons instead of clumps. Keeping the soup at a boil while pouring helps the egg set quickly and cleanly.

“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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