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Milk Soup

A soup made with boiling milk, butter, flour, shredded cabbage, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Milk Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the shredded cabbage and cook gently for 15 to 20 minutes.

  3. Pour in the boiling milk and simmer gently for about 10 minutes.

  4. Blend the flour with a little cold water until smooth, then stir it into the soup.

  5. Stir and boil gently for 5 to 7 minutes, then season with salt and pepper to taste.

  6. Serve hot.

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. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + cabbagetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together978 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Melts to cook the cabbage gently and adds richness to the soup.
White cabbage
Forms the main body of the soup and gives it its vegetable flavour and texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the soup and gives it a creamy body.
Flour
Thickens the milk as it boils, giving the soup a smoother, heavier body.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour mixture and keep the soup gently boiling. Flour must be blended smooth with cold water first so it does not clump, and the soup needs to boil gently while stirring so the starch swells evenly and thickens the milk.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, 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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