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Artichoke Soup

A soup made from boiled artichokes, onion, milk, and seasoned with salt, pepper, and Yorkshire Relish.

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

Why it works: Artichoke and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 738 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Artichoke Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and pare the artichokes and onion.

  2. Boil them in salted water until tender.

  3. Pass through a wire sieve into a basin.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the milk, season with salt, pepper, and Yorkshire Relish.

  2. Stir until smooth, then return to the saucepan and warm.

  3. Serve with toast cut into little squares.

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. Artichoke + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Artichoke + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Artichokes
Provide the main body and flavour of the soup once boiled and sieved.
Onion
Adds savoury depth to the soup base.
Skim or new milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, giving the soup a smooth, rich body.

The step that matters

Passing through the sieve. Pressing the cooked artichokes and onion through a wire sieve breaks down fibres and removes stringy bits, which is what gives the soup its smooth texture. Skipping or rushing this leaves the soup coarse.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, milk, pepper. 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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