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Cheese Soup

A creamy soup with cheese balls made from flour, cream, butter, Parmesan, cayenne, eggs, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese balls

  1. Mix flour, cream, butter, cheese, and cayenne together.

  2. Place the mixture in a basin set in hot water and stir until smooth and firm.

  3. Quickly mix in the eggs until well combined.

  4. Cook for 2 minutes, then let cool.

  5. Form the mixture into small balls, about the size of a walnut.

  6. Drop the balls into boiling water and cook gently for 5 minutes.

Serve

  1. Place the balls in a soup tureen and pour boiling stock over them.

  2. Serve with a plate of finely grated Parmesan cheese.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Gives the mixture body so it can be stirred firm and hold its shape as balls.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when heated, helping the balls hold together.
Rich cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the dough into a smooth mixture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and a nutty aroma to the balls and soup.

The step that matters

Quickly mix in the eggs. Eggs set when heated, so they should be stirred in quickly and evenly off the heat-driven setting stage to avoid scrambled bits and to keep the mixture smooth.

“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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