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Peanut Soup

A soup made from shelled peanuts, water, onion, celery, and optionally chicken stock or milk, thickened with flour and butter.

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 soup base

  1. Cook the shelled peanuts in water until tender, about 1 hour.

  2. Add 1 quart of water, onion, and celery.

  3. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

Finish and season

  1. If available, add chicken stock; if not, add milk.

  2. Thicken with flour and butter mixed together.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Peanut + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together541 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-ethyl-3,6-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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

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

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

Shelled peanuts
Provide the main body and nutty flavour once cooked soft and sieved.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the soup becomes smooth and creamy.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the flour blend smoothly into the soup.
Chicken stock or milk
Supplies liquid and savoury depth, and adds creaminess when milk is used.

The step that matters

Thicken with flour and butter mixed together. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps, so it should be blended with the butter first. Cooking it briefly lets the starch swell and thicken the soup evenly.

Swap the peanut

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Peanutthe original

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