Skip to main content
Soup

White and Other Soups

A creamy soup made from pumpkin or vegetable marrow, butter, flour, milk, and seasonings.

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

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

White and Other Soups

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Stew the pumpkins or vegetable marrow gently with butter, salt, sugar, pepper, and water for 20 minutes until soft.

  2. Once pulped, gradually stir in flour and milk, mixing well.

  3. Optionally, stew a sliced onion with the marrow for added flavor.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pumpkin + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Pumpkins or vegetable marrow
Forms the main body of the soup and gives it its bulk and sweet, earthy flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and giving the soup a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it combines with the liquid, giving it body.
Milk
Adds liquid and creaminess, softening the flavor and smoothing the texture.

The step that matters

Gradually stirring in flour and milk. Adding flour all at once can form lumps because starch clumps when it hits hot liquid unevenly. Adding it gradually and mixing well lets the starch disperse evenly so the soup thickens smoothly.

Swap the pumpkin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, pepper, flour, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, pepper, flour, milk. 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.

You might also like

Indian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipesCream of Asparagus SoupCream of Asparagus Soup42 recipes