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Pumpkin Soup

A soup made from pumpkin, onions, carrot, butter, water, milk, pepper, salt, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Pumpkin Soup

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, melt half the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the pumpkin, onions, and carrot; sweat the vegetables for 5 minutes.

  3. Pour in the boiling water and boil until the vegetables are very soft.

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

  5. Stir in the milk, pepper, and salt; heat until it boils.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, stir in the remaining butter in small pieces and a little lemon juice.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Pumpkin
Forms the bulk of the soup and gives it body and sweet flavour when cooked soft.
Onions
Build savoury depth as they soften and sweeten during sweating.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Milk
Softens the flavour and makes the soup smoother and creamier.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a sieve. Pressing the cooked vegetables through a sieve breaks down the fibres and produces a smooth texture. Skipping or rushing this leaves the soup grainy or stringy.

Swap the pumpkin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, butter, milk, pepper, lemon):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, butter, milk, pepper, lemon. 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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