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Soup

Flemish Soup

A hearty soup of onions, celery, potatoes, ham, and butter, finished with cream, egg yolks, and fresh butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Flemish Soup

Why it works: Onion and potato 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

  1. In a stewpan, melt butter with ham and a little white stock.

  2. Stew slowly for 30 minutes.

  3. Add broth and let it boil gently for another 30 minutes or until potatoes dissolve.

  4. Rub the mixture through a tammie with the soaked French roll crumb.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in boiled cream and egg yolks.

  2. Before serving, work in a little fresh butter.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Celery + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down during simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup gently when stirred in, adding richness and body.
French roll crumb
Soaked in broth and rubbed through with the soup, it helps thicken and bind the texture.
Butter
Provides fat and flavour, first to cook the ham and later enriching the finished soup.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can curdle or scramble if the soup is too hot or boils after they are added. Stir them in off the heat or over very gentle warmth to keep the soup smooth.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, potato, butter, ham, cream, egg):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, potato, butter, ham, cream, egg. 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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