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Soup Powder

A powdered blend of lemon peel, thyme, marjoram, parsley, and celery seed used to flavor soup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Soup Powder

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the powder

  1. Dry the lemon peel, thyme, marjoram, and parsley on paper in a warm oven.

  2. Pound the dried herbs in a mortar and rub through a fine sieve.

  3. Add the powdered celery seed and mix well.

  4. Bottle and cork the mixture.

Use

  1. Add 1 teaspoon of this powder to each quart of soup.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Lemon + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemon peel
Adds bright, citrusy aroma to the powder.
Thyme
Contributes a savory, aromatic herbal flavor.
Sweet marjoram
Adds a warm, sweet herbal aroma.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green herbal flavor.
Celery seed
Adds a distinct earthy, celery-like flavor to the blend.

The step that matters

Drying the herbs in a warm oven. Herbs and peel must be fully dry before pounding, because residual moisture makes them clump and resist sieving, and can encourage mold in the stored powder.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, thyme, marjoram, parsley):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, thyme, marjoram, 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.

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