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Meagre. Onion Soup

A savory soup made with onions, turnip, carrots, celery, butter, water, anchovies, mace, peppercorns, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Meagre. Onion Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, fry the onions, turnip, carrots, and celery in butter until browned.

  2. Add boiling water, anchovies, mace, peppercorns, and salt.

  3. Boil until reduced to a pulp, then strain the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the strained soup to the pot, skim off any fat, and thicken with egg yolks.

  2. Serve with fried bread or a French roll.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Caramelize during frying and, reduced to a pulp, give the soup its body and sweet, savory flavor.
Butter
Fat for frying the vegetables, adding richness and helping them brown.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup as they gently set with heat, giving it a smooth, rich texture.
Anchovies
Add a deep, savory background flavor that enriches the broth.

The step that matters

Add the egg yolks gently. Egg yolks thicken by setting with heat. If the soup is too hot or boils after they go in, the yolks can scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth one.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, turnip, carrot, celery, butter, anchovy, bread):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, turnip, carrot, celery, butter, anchovy, 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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