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Parsnip Soup

A soup made from sliced parsnips simmered in butter and stock, seasoned with salt and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsnip and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,051 recipes. Both carry beta-pinene, which smells pine, resin. The science ↓

Parsnip Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the parsnips

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the sliced parsnips and simmer until tender.

  3. Add nearly ½ quart of stock and boil for 30 minutes.

Strain and finish

  1. Strain the mixture through a fine strainer.

  2. Return the strained mixture to the pot and add the remaining stock.

  3. Season to taste, boil again, and serve.

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. Parsnip + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,051 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

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

What each ingredient does

Parsnips
Form the main body of the soup and, as they cook soft, give it thickness and natural sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich mouthfeel and carries flavour through the soup.
Stock
Supplies the cooking liquid that softens the parsnips and sets the soup's savoury base.

The step that matters

Strain through a fine strainer. Straining removes the fibrous bits of cooked parsnip, so the soup becomes smooth rather than grainy. Pressing the solids well lets more of the starchy pulp pass through, which adds body.

“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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