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Flemish Soup

A vegetable soup made with potatoes, celery, onions, butter, stock, and milk, simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Flemish Soup

Why it works: Potato and onion 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 ↓

Flemish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Heat the butter in a large saucepan.

  2. Add the prepared vegetables and cover closely.

  3. Cook gently for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

  4. Add the boiling stock or water.

  5. Season with salt and pepper.

  6. Boil gently until the potatoes are soft.

Finish and serve

  1. Rub the mixture through a wire sieve.

  2. Reheat the soup and add the milk.

  3. Season to taste.

  4. Make thoroughly hot before serving.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down when cooked to give the soup body and a thick, smooth texture.
Butter
Fat that softens the vegetables gently and carries flavour in the soup.
Milk
Adds richness and a softer, creamier mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Onions
Release sweetness and aroma as they cook slowly in the fat.
Celery
Adds savoury, aromatic flavour as it softens during gentle cooking.

The step that matters

Cook the vegetables gently with the lid on. Covered, gentle cooking softens the vegetables in their own moisture and fat without browning them. Browning would change the soup's pale colour and flavour, and boiling too hard can make the mixture stick and scorch on the base of the pan.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, potato, onion, butter, 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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