Skip to main content
Main

Brussels Sprouts Soup

A creamy soup made from pureed Brussels sprouts simmered in stock and finished with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Brussels Sprouts Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the purée

  1. Wash and trim the Brussels sprouts.

  2. Cook them in salted water with a small piece of baking soda until tender.

  3. Drain well and rub through a sieve to make a purée.

Make the soup

  1. In a stewpan, combine the purée with the stock and bring to a boil.

  2. Let it simmer for a few minutes, skimming off any scum.

  3. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  4. Add the cream and reduce the heat to low, keeping it hot without boiling.

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. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Brussels sprouts + peppertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35 recipes

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

  5. Brussels sprouts + creamtop 41% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3 recipes

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Brussels sprouts
Form the main body of the soup and give it its green, vegetal flavour once puréed.
Stock
Provides the liquid base and savoury depth that thins the purée into soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Baking soda
Helps the sprouts soften and keep their bright green colour during cooking.

The step that matters

Keeping the cream soup hot without boiling. Once cream is added, boiling can cause it to separate or curdle and leave the texture grainy, so the heat should be kept low.

Swap the brussels sprouts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, nutmeg, pepper):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Brussels sproutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, nutmeg, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Brussels SproutsBrussels Sprouts92 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes