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Macaroni Soup

A veal-based soup with macaroni, milk, flour, and cream, seasoned with salt, pepper, parsley, and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Macaroni Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Make a nice veal soup and season with salt, pepper, parsley, and onion.

Cook the macaroni

  1. Simmer the broken macaroni in milk until tender.

  2. Strain the macaroni and add it to the soup.

Finish

  1. Stir in the flour and cream until well combined.

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

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

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Macaroni
Adds body and starch so the soup feels more substantial.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells with heat, giving a smoother body.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the soup.
Milk
Cooks the macaroni until tender and adds a mild sweetness and body.
Veal soup
Forms the savory base that carries the other ingredients.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour and cream until well combined. Flour clumps if it hits hot liquid unmixed, because its starch gels in pockets before it disperses. Whisking it well into the cream and soup keeps the thickening smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, parsley, milk, flour, cream):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, parsley, milk, flour, cream. 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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