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Peanut Soup

A soup made with peanuts, onion, celery, stock, milk or cream, butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Peanut Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Cook the peanuts, onion, and celery in water until tender.

  2. Mash the mixture through a sieve.

Finish the soup

  1. Stir in the white stock and hot milk or cream.

  2. In a separate pan, melt the butter and mix in the flour, salt, and pepper.

  3. Add this mixture to the soup and stir well.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Peanut + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,043 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Peanuts
Provide the main body and nutty flavour, and thicken the soup when mashed.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour in the thickening mixture.
Flour
Thickens the butter mixture so the soup becomes smoother and fuller.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture, creaminess, and softness to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour mixture. Flour must be cooked briefly in melted butter before it goes into the soup; otherwise it stays raw-tasting and can form lumps instead of thickening smoothly.

Swap the peanut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, celery, milk, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, celery, milk, butter, flour, 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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