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Onion Soup

A savory soup made with onions, carrots, celery, stock, bread crust, eggs, vinegar, butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Onion Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Pare and slice the onions.

  2. Fry them in butter until pale brown.

Simmer the soup

  1. In a saucepan, combine the onions, stock, bread crust, pepper, and salt.

  2. Cut the carrots and celery into small pieces and add them to the saucepan.

  3. Let the mixture boil together for 2 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Ten minutes before serving, beat the egg yolks with a little soup and vinegar.

  2. Gradually pour the egg mixture into the soup while stirring, but do not allow it to boil.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Provide the main body of flavor and sweetness as they brown and soften in the broth.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup into a smooth, creamy texture when gently heated.
Bread crust
Adds body to the broth as it softens during the long simmer.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries all the other flavors.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the soup as they cook down.
Celery
Adds savory, aromatic flavor to the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. If the egg mixture boils, the yolks can scramble and curdle, leaving the soup grainy instead of smooth. Stirring while pouring the mixture in gradually helps it blend evenly and thicken gently.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, carrot, celery, egg, pepper, butter, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, carrot, celery, egg, pepper, butter, vinegar. 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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