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Artichoke Soup

A creamy soup made from boiled artichokes, leeks, butter, milk, and finished with egg yolks and cream.

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

Why it works: Artichoke and leek share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Artichoke Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and clean the artichokes and leeks.

Make the soup

  1. Boil them in water and milk with the butter until soft.

  2. Press the mixture through a sieve into a clean saucepan.

  3. Season the soup with pepper and salt to taste.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the egg yolks and cream together.

  2. Pour the hot soup onto the egg and cream mixture, stirring constantly.

  3. Return the soup to the saucepan and pour it into a hot tureen.

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 + leektop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + artichoketop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Pepper + leektop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together965 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the soup into a smooth, velvety texture when gently heated.
Cream
Adds richness and body, softening the flavour and texture of the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and a rounded richness to the cooked vegetables.
Artichokes
Provide the main flavour and body of the soup once cooked and sieved.
Leeks
Add a mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the soup base.

The step that matters

Pour the hot soup onto the egg and cream mixture, stirring constantly. Egg yolks set at around 70°C and can scramble if they meet hot liquid too fast. Adding the hot soup gradually while stirring warms the yolks evenly so the soup thickens smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the leek

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Leekthe original

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