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Cheese and Vegetable Soup

A creamy soup of vegetables, cheese, and stock, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cheese and Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Cook the vegetables in 1 tablespoon of butter for a short time.

  2. Add the vegetable stock and mace.

  3. Boil for 15 to 20 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the scalded milk.

  2. Thicken the soup with flour cooked in the remaining butter.

  3. Stir in the grated cheese.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Vegetable stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the flavour of the vegetables.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the soup's flavour.
Grated cheese
Adds rich savoury flavour and body when stirred into the hot soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked in butter to form a roux.
Butter
Carries flavour for cooking the vegetables and the flour, adding richness.
Carrots
Contribute sweetness and colour as the main vegetable.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with flour cooked in butter. Flour cooked in butter forms a roux that thickens the liquid smoothly. If the flour is added raw or not cooked, it can leave lumps or a raw floury taste.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, carrot, cheese, onion, butter, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, carrot, cheese, onion, butter, flour. 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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