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Flemish Soup

A hearty soup of potatoes, celery, onions, and stock, finished with milk and butter.

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

Make the soup

  1. Heat the butter in a large saucepan.

  2. Add the prepared vegetables, cover, and cook gently for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  3. Add the boiling stock or water along with salt and pepper, and boil gently until the potatoes are soft.

  4. Rub the mixture through a wire sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Reheat the soup, add the milk, season to taste, and make thoroughly hot 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 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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down when cooked to thicken the soup and give it a smooth body.
Celery
Contributes aromatic flavour and fibre that gives body once sieved.
Onions
Build a sweet, savoury base as they soften in butter.
Butter
Carries flavour and adds richness when the vegetables cook in it.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mellows the flavour at the end.

The step that matters

Rubbing through the sieve. Cooked potatoes and celery must be pushed fully through the sieve to get a smooth, even texture; lumps left behind make the soup grainy.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, potato, onion, butter, 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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