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Cherry Soup

A chilled or warm soup made from cherries, thickened with cornstarch, served with a rice flour and buttered crouton topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cherry Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the cherry soup

  1. Wash the cherries and cover them with water; cook until tender.

  2. Rub the cooked cherries through a sieve and sweeten to taste.

  3. Return the cherry mixture to the heat and thicken with cornstarch mixed with a little water.

Prepare the accompaniments

  1. In the meantime, cook rice flour in milk until it reaches a mushy consistency; season with salt and butter.

  2. Butter slices of stale bread, cut into 1-inch squares, and brown lightly in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

Serve

  1. Serve the rice flour mixture alongside the cherry soup.

  2. Serve the croutons with the 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Cherries
Provide the main fruit flavour and body of the soup once cooked and sieved.
Cornstarch
Thickens the cooked cherry liquid into a smooth, lightly bodied soup.
Rice flour
Cooked in milk to a mushy texture, giving a thick, starchy side dish.
Stale bread
Toasts in the oven into crisp croutons that add contrasting crunch.

The step that matters

Thicken with cornstarch mixed with water. Cornstarch must be mixed with cold water before adding it to hot liquid, otherwise it clumps. Once heated, its starch swells and thickens the soup.

“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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