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Flemish Soup

A creamy potato and celery soup made with butter, stock, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the potatoes and onions.

  2. Cut the celery into small pieces.

Make the soup

  1. Put them in a stew-pan with butter and water, and boil slowly for 1 hour.

  2. Fill the stew-pan with stock or broth and boil until the potatoes dissolve.

  3. Rub the mixture through a sieve, add cream, and keep it hot until served.

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. Potato + celerytop 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 when boiled, thickening the broth and giving the soup its body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, softening the vegetables gently in the pan.
Celery
Contributes savoury, aromatic flavour and some fibrous body to the soup.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aroma as they cook slowly in the butter and water.
Cream
Adds smoothness and richness to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Boiling until the potatoes dissolve. The soup thickens only when the potatoes break down fully. Stopping early leaves lumps, while a hard boil can scorch the bottom of the pan. Keep the heat steady and stir.

Swap the celery

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

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

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