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Flemish Soup

A stew of celery, potatoes, onions, and cream seasoned with salt, white pepper, and optional curry powder.

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

Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Flemish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the onions, celery, and potatoes.

  2. Put them in a stew pan with just enough water to cover.

  3. Stew until they can be rubbed through a fine colander.

Finish the soup

  1. Return to the kettle with the water and bring to a boil.

  2. Season with salt, white pepper, or a little curry powder.

  3. Heat the cream in a pitcher placed in hot water.

  4. Add the hot cream to the soup just before serving.

Notes

  1. If you dislike onion, substitute with 2 small carrots.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Celery + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  3. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Celery + white peppertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together853 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Cream + potatotop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Provides the main vegetable body and flavor of the soup.
Potatoes
Break down when stewed, thickening the soup and giving it a smooth texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and depth of flavor to the soup base.

The step that matters

Add the hot cream just before serving. Cream can curdle or separate when it is boiled or cooled and reheated sharply. Warming it gently in hot water and adding it at the end keeps the soup smooth and rich.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, cream, potato, onion):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, cream, potato, onion. 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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