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Soup

Cream of Mushrooms, Supreme

A creamy soup made from mushrooms, veal broth, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Cream of Mushrooms, Supreme

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Clean and cut mushrooms into ½-inch pieces.

  2. Place mushrooms in a stone jar and cover with cold water.

  3. Cook in a 300°F (150°C) oven until tender.

  4. Rub the cooked mushrooms through a fine sieve.

Make the soup

  1. In a pan, braise shallots, carrot, and celery in butter for 15 minutes.

  2. Add parsley, mace, and flour to thicken the soup.

  3. Blend to a smooth paste.

  4. Slowly incorporate veal broth.

  5. Bring to a boil.

  6. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 2 hours.

  7. Skim off fat.

  8. Strain.

  9. Add mushroom pulp.

Season and finish

  1. Season with salt, white pepper, and nutmeg.

  2. Stir in cream before serving.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide the main body, earthy flavour and pulp that thickens the soup.
Butter
Carries the flavour of the braised vegetables and adds richness.
Flour
Thickens the soup by binding with the liquid as it cooks.
Veal broth
Forms the liquid base and supplies savoury depth.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture at the end.

The step that matters

Slowly incorporate veal broth. Adding broth gradually to the flour-and-butter paste lets it blend smoothly. Pouring it in all at once can leave lumps that are hard to remove.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, butter, shallot, carrot, celery, parsley, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, shallot, carrot, celery, parsley, 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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