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Onion Soup

A veal-based soup with onions, milk, butter, rice flour, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Onion Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Boil the veal in water with white pepper and mace until the meat leaves the bone.

  2. Strain off the stock.

  3. Let the stock cool.

  4. Remove the fat from the stock.

Finish the soup

  1. Boil the onions in milk and water until tender enough to pulp through a sieve.

  2. Bring the stock to a boil.

  3. Add the onions.

  4. Mix in the butter and rice flour.

  5. Season with salt.

  6. Boil gently for 30 minutes, stirring constantly.

  7. Stir in the cream 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.

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

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

  2. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Knuckle of veal
Breaks down into the body and gelatin that give the stock its richness.
Spanish onions
Pulped into the soup, adding bulk, sweetness and a smooth, thick body.
Fresh butter
Adds fat for a rounded, silky mouthfeel and carries flavour.
Rice flour
Thickens the soup as it simmers, giving it a smooth, lightly body.
Rich cream
Stirred in at the end to add fat, softness and a mellow finish.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 30 minutes, stirring constantly. Starch thickeners such as rice flour can clump or scorch on the bottom of the pan if the heat is too high or stirring stops. Gentle simmering with constant stirring keeps the soup smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, mace, onion, milk, butter, rice, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, mace, onion, milk, butter, rice, flour. 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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