Skip to main content
Main

Artichoke Soup

A soup made from boiled artichokes, turnip, onion, lentils, stock, and cream, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Artichoke Soup

Why it works: Artichoke and lentils share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Artichoke Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the artichokes, turnip, and onion (chopped small) in 2 cups of stock until reduced to a pulp.

  2. Rough the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Add the remaining stock and bring to a boil.

  4. Thicken with a little flour if desired.

Serve

  1. Place cream in a hot tureen and gradually add the soup.

  2. Serve with toasted bread pieces.

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. Artichoke + lentilstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together19 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Artichoke + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together140 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + lentilstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together109 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Artichokes
Provide the main body and flavour, breaking down into a pulp that thickens the soup.
Turnip
Adds body and subtle sweetness as it softens into the pureed base.
Onion
Builds savoury aromatic depth as it softens in the stock.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the soup to the cream. Pouring the soup gradually into the cream while it is hot helps it blend smoothly. Adding it all at once or to cold cream can cause uneven mixing and a grainy texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, turnip, cream, pepper, lentils, parsley):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Kalefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, turnip, cream, pepper, lentils, parsley. 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.

More artichoke soup recipes

Jerusalem 55Brown 3 See all 70 →

You might also like

Turnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes