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Onion Soup

A savory soup made with onions, turnip, celery, milk, butter, flour, and egg yolks, seasoned with salt, pepper, bay leaf, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and celery 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 the vegetables

  1. Cut the turnip and celery into small pieces and peel the onions.

  2. Place the onions in cold water, bring to a boil, and cook for 10 minutes.

  3. Drain and chop coarsely.

Make the soup

  1. In a stewpan, add 2 pints of boiling water, the onions, celery, turnip, bay leaf, mace, salt, and pepper.

  2. Simmer until tender, about 1 hour.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve and return it to the saucepan.

  4. Add the milk and bring to a boil.

  5. Stir in the flour and butter, kneaded together, and simmer for a few minutes to cook the flour.

Finish and serve

  1. Let the soup cool slightly.

  2. Beat the egg yolks with a little milk, pour into the soup, and stir until thickened.

  3. Season to taste and serve with fried or toasted croutons of bread.

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

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

  5. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Provide the main body and sweet, savory flavor of the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a smooth, rich texture to the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and combines with flour to thicken the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup further and add richness when gently stirred in.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; if the soup is too hot when they are added, they can scramble and curdle. Let the soup cool slightly first and stir steadily.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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