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Another Onion Soup

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Another Onion Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Boil 4 quarts of water with the veal, whole white pepper, and mace until the meat falls off the bone.

  2. Strain the stock.

  3. Refrigerate overnight.

  4. Remove the fat from the stock.

Make the soup

  1. Boil the onions in milk and water until tender.

  2. Pulp the onions through a sieve.

  3. Bring the stock to a boil.

  4. Add the pulped onions.

  5. Mix in the butter and rice flour.

  6. Season with salt.

  7. Boil gently for 30 minutes, stirring constantly.

  8. Stir in the rich 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
Releases gelatin and flavour into the stock, giving the soup body and richness.
Spanish onions
Break down into a pulp that thickens the soup and adds sweetness and savoury depth.
Milk
Softens the onions and adds mild richness and body to the pulp.
Rice flour
Thickens the soup as it simmers, giving a smooth, lightly bodied texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounded flavour and smooth mouthfeel.
Rich cream
Stirred in at the end to add fat, softness and a silky finish.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 30 minutes, stirring constantly. Flour-thickened soups can scorch on the bottom of the pan and turn lumpy if left unstirred. Gentle heat keeps the starch smoothly dispersed and prevents scorching while the soup thickens.

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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