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Artichoke Puree Soup

A creamy soup made from boiled artichokes, butter, stock, and seasonings, finished with butter and served with fried bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Artichoke Puree Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the artichokes

  1. Peel the artichokes and cut them into quarters.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter over low heat.

  3. Season the artichokes with salt, pepper, and sugar, then add them to the saucepan.

  4. Cook until the artichokes are lightly colored, then add enough white stock broth to cover them.

Make the soup

  1. Add the faggot of parsley and the onions, cover, and cook until tender.

  2. Stir in the thickened chicken or veal broth and let it boil slowly for 30 minutes.

  3. Remove the faggot of parsley and onions, skim the soup, and strain it through a fine sieve.

  4. Return the soup to the saucepan to keep warm.

Serve

  1. Before serving, stir in a piece of butter until melted.

  2. Serve with small fried bread crumbs on the side.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Artichoke + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together524 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Artichokes
Provide the main body and flavor of the soup once cooked and strained.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the soup.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma as they soften in the soup.
Thickened chicken or veal broth
Forms the liquid base and gives the soup its body and savory depth.

The step that matters

Strain through a fine sieve after removing the parsley and onions. Straining removes fibrous artichoke and cooked solids so the soup becomes smooth; skimming first removes fat and foam that would otherwise cloud the texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, butter, pepper, sugar, parsley, chicken, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, butter, pepper, sugar, parsley, chicken, bread. 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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