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Peanut Soup

A savory soup made with peanuts, onion, celery, stock, milk, 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

  1. Cook the peanuts with the onion and celery until tender.

  2. Mash the mixture through a sieve.

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

  4. Melt the butter, then mix in the flour, salt, and pepper.

  5. Add the butter 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 of the soup once cooked and mashed.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when melted with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked in the melted butter, giving it body.
Milk or thin cream
Adds moisture and creaminess, softening the soup's texture.
White stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavours of the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the butter mixture. Stirring in the flour-butter mixture thoroughly prevents lumps, since flour clumps when added to liquid without being fully dispersed, and it thickens the soup evenly.

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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