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Soup

Flemish Soup

A creamy soup of potatoes, onions, celery, veal stock, and cream, simmered and strained.

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 the vegetables

  1. Wash, slice, and peel the potatoes and onions.

  2. Cut the celery into small pieces.

Make the soup

  1. Combine the vegetables with butter and water in a stewpan.

  2. Let it simmer for 1 hour.

  3. Add veal stock and boil until the potatoes dissolve.

  4. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  5. Stir in the cream.

  6. Keep it hot in a small soup pan until 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.

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 soup and giving it a smooth body.
Onions
Soften during simmering and add savory sweetness and aroma to the base.
Celery
Adds aromatic, vegetal flavour to the simmered base.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour from the vegetables.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Boiling until the potatoes dissolve. The potatoes must break down fully so the soup thickens naturally. Undercooked potatoes leave lumps and a grainy texture, and the sieving step cannot fully smooth them.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, butter, veal, 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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