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Onion Soup

A savory soup made from onions, turnips, celery seed, mace, stock, butter, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and turnip are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,418 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Onion Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the onions, then soak them in cold water for at least 1 hour.

  2. Peel and slice the turnips.

  3. Add the turnips and celery seed (tied in a piece of muslin) to the onions.

Simmer and finish

  1. Add salt, pepper, and the blade of mace, then boil for 2 hours.

  2. Strain the soup, then stir in the butter, white stock, and sugar.

  3. Boil again for a few minutes 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.

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 + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Spanish onions
Form the body of the soup and, as they cook down, give it its sweetness and flavour.
Turnips
Add a mild, slightly sweet vegetable flavour and body to the soup.
White stock
Supplies the liquid that carries the flavour and makes the soup pourable.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Lump sugar
Rounds out the flavour and balances the sharpness of the onions.

The step that matters

Boil for 2 hours with the lid off or on, keeping a steady simmer. A long, gentle boil breaks down the onions and turnips so their sugars and starches thicken and sweeten the soup. A rolling boil can reduce the liquid too fast and scorch the bottom of the pan.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, celery, turnip, butter, pepper, sugar):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, celery, turnip, butter, pepper, sugar. 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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