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Bread

Bread Soup

Bread soup made with stale wholemeal bread, onions, turnips, celery, butter, milk, parsley, and optional nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Bread Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the bread crusts in water for 2 hours.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine the soaked bread, diced vegetables, butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Simmer gently for 1 hour.

  3. Rub the soup through a sieve back into the saucepan.

  4. Add the milk, parsley, and nutmeg if desired.

Finish and serve

  1. Bring the soup to a boil and serve immediately.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stale wholemeal bread crusts
Soaked and sieved, they thicken the soup and give it a smooth body.
Onions
Slow simmering softens them and releases sweetness that rounds out the broth.
Turnips
They soften during simmering and add a mild, slightly peppery sweetness.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Milk
Stirred in near the end, it adds creaminess and softens the flavour.

The step that matters

Bringing the soup back to a boil after adding the milk. Milk can scorch on the base of the pan or separate when it gets too hot. Heating it gently and watching the pot closely keeps the soup smooth and prevents a burnt taste.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, turnip, celery, butter, parsley, milk, 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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