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Vegetable Marrow Soup

A soup made from sliced vegetable marrow, onion, celery seeds, butter, stock, eggs, and milk, served with fried bread and Parmesan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Vegetable Marrow Soup

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Vegetable Marrow Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the marrow thinly and cut it into thick slices, leaving the seeds in the marrow.

  2. Peel and slice the onion.

  3. Tie the celery seeds in a piece of muslin.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a large saucepan.

  2. Add the marrow, onion, and celery seeds.

  3. Toss over gentle heat for 5 minutes.

  4. Add the stock or water and 1 teaspoon of salt.

  5. Boil until tender, about 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

  6. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the egg yolks with a little of the milk.

  2. Stir the soup quickly into the egg mixture.

  3. Return the mixture to the saucepan.

  4. Stir over gentle heat to cook the eggs, being careful not to let it boil.

  5. If the soup is too thick, add more milk.

  6. Serve with small dice of fried bread and grated Parmesan cheese.

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

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Vegetable marrow
Forms the bulk of the soup and, once sieved, gives it its body and mild flavour.
Butter
Fat that softens the onion and marrow and carries flavour through the soup.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup gently as they cook, giving it a smooth, richer texture.
Milk
Adds creaminess and moisture, and thins the soup if it becomes too thick.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture. Egg yolks set when heated, so the soup must stay off a boil while they cook. Boiling can curdle the yolks and leave the soup grainy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, butter, egg, milk, 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.

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