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Onion Soup

A savory soup made with veal or beef stock, onions, root vegetables, ham, egg yolks, cream, and bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 590 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Onion Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Stew the stock, onions, turnips, parsnip, carrots, celery, sweet herbs, white pepper, salt, and ham in a large pot until perfectly tender.

  2. Press all ingredients through a fine sieve and let the soup cool.

Finish and serve

  1. Pound the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs and mix them with the thick cream.

  2. Stir the egg and cream mixture into the soup and heat gently, being careful not to boil.

  3. Toast the piece of bread and place it into the soup 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. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Break down during stewing to give the soup its body and sweet, savoury flavour.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Emulsify with the cream and thicken the soup into a smooth, rich texture.
Thick cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the soup's texture and mellowing its flavour.
Veal or beef stock
Forms the liquid base that carries all the flavour and body of the soup.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and body to the stewed vegetable base.

The step that matters

Adding the egg and cream mixture. Egg yolks begin to set and can curdle or scramble if the soup boils, which leaves a grainy texture. Heating gently keeps the liaison smooth and creamy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, turnip, parsnip, carrot, celery, ham):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, turnip, parsnip, carrot, celery, ham. 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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