Skip to main content
Main

Milk Soup

A simple soup made with milk, water, potatoes, onion, semolina, butter, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Milk Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Wash the potatoes in several waters to preserve color, then peel and slice them.

  2. Peel and slice the onion.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the sliced vegetables to the hot butter and stir frequently to prevent browning.

  3. Cover the vegetables with boiling water and cook until tender.

  4. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve back into the saucepan.

  5. Add the milk and gradually stir in the semolina, cooking for 5 minutes until thickened.

Finish and serve

  1. Chop the parsley very finely, wash, and wring it dry.

  2. Drop the parsley into the soup tureen and pour the soup over it. 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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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 and sieved to give the soup its body and smooth texture.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess, softening the soup's flavor and color.
Semolina
Thickens the milk-based soup as it cooks, giving it a fuller consistency.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, helping the sliced vegetables soften in the pan.
Spanish onion
Contributes sweetness and aroma as it softens in the butter.

The step that matters

Stirring the vegetables in the hot butter. Frequent stirring spreads the heat and keeps the sliced potatoes and onion from scorching or browning, which would change the soup's pale color and flavor.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Cinnamonfits about as well

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

More milk soup recipes

Tomato 14Rice 10Bread 8Oyster 6Almond 5Beef 4 See all 78 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes