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Soup

Potage a LA Bonne Femme

A light soup made with stock, onion, and rice flour thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Potage a LA Bonne Femme

Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,433 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Potage a LA Bonne Femme

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare a quart of common stock and set aside.

  2. Slice the onion into very thin rounds.

  3. In a small saucepan, mix the rice-flour with a few spoonfuls of the stock until smooth.

Make the soup

  1. Gradually pour the mixture into the hot stock, stirring vigorously.

  2. Let the soup boil, then simmer for 10 minutes.

  3. Strain the soup to remove any lumps 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.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together10,433 recipes

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

  2. Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice-flour
Thickens the stock as it heats, giving the soup body.
Onion
Adds aroma and sweetness to the stock.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour mixture into the hot stock. Starch lumps form when flour meets hot liquid without being dispersed first. Mixing it smooth in a little cold stock and stirring vigorously as it goes in helps the starch disperse evenly and thicken the soup without lumps.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, flour):

  1. Arrowrootbetter flavor fit
  2. Okrabetter flavor fit
  3. Welsh onionbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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