Skip to main content
Main

Cream of Spaghetti Soup, Savoy Style

A creamy soup made with butter, flour, broth, spaghetti, egg yolks, Parmesan, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cream of Spaghetti Soup, Savoy Style

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Melt the butter in a pot.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook until frothy.

  3. Add 1 quart of broth and stir until boiling.

  4. Add the second quart of broth and let cook for 15 minutes.

Cook the spaghetti

  1. Break the spaghetti into 1-inch lengths and cook in boiling salted water until tender.

  2. Drain the spaghetti, rinse in cold water, and drain again.

  3. Add the spaghetti to the soup.

Finish with egg and cheese

  1. Beat the egg yolks and gradually mix in the grated Parmesan cheese and cream.

  2. Stir this mixture into the soup, continuing to stir until the cheese melts and the egg thickens, but do not let it boil.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Enriches the base and carries the flour, adding richness to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth, body-rich base when cooked with the butter.
Broth
Forms the liquid body of the soup, carrying all the flavor.
Egg yolks
Thicken the finished soup into a creamy texture when gently heated.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and helps give the finished soup body.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the egg and cheese mixture. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat, but boiling can scramble them into grainy curds. Stir steadily off a rolling boil so the custard-like mixture thickens smoothly and the cheese melts evenly.

“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

Macaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesCheese MakingCheese Making50 recipesCheese FrittersCheese Fritters34 recipesCheese OmeletteCheese Omelette31 recipes