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Cressy Soup

A simple soup made with onion, butter, broth, and cress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Cressy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a pot.

  2. Add the chopped onion and sauté until translucent.

  3. Pour in the broth and bring to a boil.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the chopped cress and simmer for 10 minutes.

  2. Season with salt and pepper before serving.

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. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Onion
Softens as it cooks, building a sweet, savoury base for the soup.
Butter
Fat that carries flavour and adds richness to the soup.
Vegetable or chicken broth
Liquid that forms the body of the soup and cooks the cress.
Cress
Leafy green that wilts into the broth and gives the soup its fresh, green flavour.

The step that matters

Simmering the cress for 10 minutes. Leafy greens lose colour and fresh flavour when overcooked. Simmering only until the cress is tender keeps the soup bright and green.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, chicken, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, chicken, pepper. 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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