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Onion-Soup

A soup made from onions, milk, water, veal gravy, cream, salt, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and veal are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,841 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Onion-Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Boil the onions in milk and water until soft, changing the water 2-3 times.

  2. Rough the cooked onions through a fine sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Pour veal gravy over the onions.

  2. Add grated white bread crumbs to the cream and season with salt and white pepper.

  3. Let the mixture boil gently for 1 hour.

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. Onion + vealtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

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

  2. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  3. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Onion + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Veal + white peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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

Onions
Form the main body of the soup and, once softened, add mild sweetness and a smooth texture.
Veal gravy
Adds savory depth and meaty flavour to the onion base.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Let the mixture boil gently for 1 hour. Dairy-based mixtures can scorch on the bottom or separate if heated too hard. A gentle boil cooks the onions and blends the flavours while protecting the cream and keeping the texture smooth.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, milk, veal, cream):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, milk, veal, cream. 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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