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Onion Soup

A savory soup made with onions, turnip, celery, milk, butter, flour, and egg yolks, seasoned with bay leaf and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,418 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Onion Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut the turnip and celery into small pieces and peel the onions.

  2. Put the onions into cold water.

  3. Bring the water to a boil.

  4. Cook the onions for 10 minutes.

  5. Drain the onions and chop them coarsely.

Make the soup

  1. Add 2 pints of boiling water to a stewpan.

  2. Add the onions, celery, turnip, bay leaf, mace, salt and pepper to the stewpan.

  3. Simmer until tender, about 1 hour.

  4. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  5. Return the sieved mixture to the saucepan and add the milk.

  6. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Thicken and serve

  1. Knead the flour and butter together.

  2. Stir the kneaded flour and butter mixture into the soup and simmer for a few minutes to cook the flour.

  3. Let the soup cool slightly.

  4. Beat the egg yolks with a little milk and pour them into the soup.

  5. Stir until the soup thickens.

  6. Season to taste.

  7. Serve with fried or toasted croutons of 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Form the sweet, savory base of the soup once simmered and sieved.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks with the butter.
Butter
Combines with the flour to form a roux that helps thicken the soup.
Egg yolks
Enrich the soup and thicken it gently when stirred in off the boil.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the sieved soup.
Turnip
Adds body and a mild, earthy sweetness to the stock.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat; if the soup boils after they go in, they can scramble and curdle. Cool the soup slightly first and stir constantly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, turnip, celery, butter, flour, egg, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, turnip, celery, butter, flour, egg, 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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