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High-flavoured Onion-soup

A savory onion soup made with butter, onions, brown gravy or stock, herbs, and seasoned with salt, pepper, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

High-flavoured Onion-soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a pot over low heat.

  2. Add the sliced onions.

  3. Cook gently until the onions are soft but not browned.

  4. Add the brown gravy or stock and the faggot of herbs.

  5. Simmer for 30 minutes.

  6. Remove the herbs and strain the soup if desired.

  7. Return the soup to the pot.

  8. Add the cooked onions to the soup and season with salt, pepper, and cayenne.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with toasted bread on the side.

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. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Onions
Slow cooking softens them and builds the sweet, savory body of the soup.
Butter
Fat that softens the onions gently and carries flavor into the soup.
Brown gravy or stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and supplies most of its savory flavor.
Toasted bread
Adds crisp texture contrast to the soft, warm soup.

The step that matters

Cook the onions gently until soft but not browned. Browning the onions adds bitter, burnt notes and a darker color, while slow, low heat draws out their natural sweetness and gives the soup a mellow flavor.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, thyme, pepper, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, thyme, pepper, bread. 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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