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White Stock Soup

A clear soup made with stock, onion, turnip, milk, potato flour, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

White Stock Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Boil the onion and turnip in a small quantity of stock until tender.

  2. Chop the onion and turnip finely and add to the stock.

Thicken and finish

  1. Boil the milk and thicken it with the potato flour.

  2. Stir the thickened milk into the stock.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  4. Just before serving, stir in the fresh butter.

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

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

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together377 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries its flavour.
Potato flour
Thickens the milk so it gives the soup body without lumps of flour.
Fresh milk
Adds creaminess and a mild sweetness to the soup.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel when stirred in at the end.
Onion
Contributes savoury flavour and body as it softens in the stock.

The step that matters

Boiling the milk before thickening. Boiling the milk with potato flour lets the starch swell and thicken evenly. Adding butter just before serving, rather than boiling it, keeps its flavour fresh and avoids separating the fat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, turnip, milk, potato, flour, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, turnip, milk, potato, flour, pepper, nutmeg. 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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