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Onion Soup, with Eggs and Cream

A savory onion soup thickened with eggs, cream, and corn starch, served with diced fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 81,283 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Onion Soup, with Eggs and Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Fry the onions in butter until light brown.

  2. Add boiling water and milk, then season with salt, pepper, mace, and sugar.

  3. Boil slowly for 1 hour and strain the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the eggs until foamy.

  2. Mix the beaten eggs with the cream and dissolved corn-starch.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil once.

  4. Serve with diced fried bread.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

White onions
Caramelise into sweet, savoury flavour as the base of the soup.
Eggs
Thicken the cream mixture into a smooth, rich body when heated.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the soup a smooth, velvety texture.
Corn-starch
Thickens the liquid so it stays smooth and does not separate.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the soup base.

The step that matters

Adding the egg and cream mixture. Once eggs are added, the soup can curdle or turn grainy if it boils hard. Bringing it to a boil only once, as the record directs, keeps the eggs tender and the texture smooth.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

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

  1. Nutmegbetter flavor fit
  2. Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
  3. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, milk, pepper, sugar, egg, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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