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Flemish Soup

A creamy soup of onions, celery, potatoes, butter, water, stock, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Flemish Soup

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Flemish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the soup

  1. Slice the onions, celery, and potatoes.

  2. Melt the butter in a stewpan and add the water.

  3. Bring to a boil over low heat for 1 hour.

  4. Add stock to fill the stewpan.

  5. Boil for another hour until the potatoes are dissolved.

  6. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Boil the cream.

  2. Add the boiled cream to the soup.

  3. Keep the soup hot in a small pot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Celery + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Provide the aromatic sweetness that forms the soup's flavour base.
Celery
Adds a fresh, savoury aroma and vegetable flavour to the base.
Potatoes
Break down during the long simmer, thickening the soup and giving it body.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavour to the vegetables at the start.
Stock
Forms the main liquid that carries the flavour of the vegetables.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Simmering until the potatoes dissolve. The potatoes must break down fully to thicken the soup naturally. Stopping too early leaves lumps and a thin texture, while boiling too hard can make the soup cloudy and sticky.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, potato, butter, 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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