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Squirrel Soup

A hearty soup made from quartered squirrels, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, lima beans, and herbs, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Squirrel Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Place the quartered squirrels in a pot with enough water to cover them.

  2. Simmer gently, do not boil.

  3. Add corn, Irish potatoes, tomatoes, and Lima beans.

  4. Strain the soup through a coarse colander to remove bones after the meat has boiled to shreds.

  5. Return the strained soup to the pot and boil for a while longer.

  6. Thicken the soup with butter rubbed in flour.

  7. Chop celery and parsley leaves and add them for flavor.

Serve

  1. Toast the bread.

  2. Cut the toasted bread into half‑inch dice.

  3. Fry the dice in butter.

  4. Place the fried bread in a tureen and pour the hot soup over it.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Corn + lima beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together222 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  5. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Squirrels
Supply the meat that cooks down to shreds and flavors the broth.
Flour
Combined with butter to thicken the broth into a heartier body.
Butter
Enriches the soup and, with flour, forms a roux that thickens it.
Lima beans
Add starch and body, making the soup more substantial.
Irish potatoes
Add starch that softens during simmering and gives the soup body.
Bread
Fried in butter, the dice brown and soak up broth while keeping some crunch.

The step that matters

Simmer gently, do not boil. Boiling toughens meat and makes proteins contract and squeeze out moisture, while gentle simmering lets collagen break down so the meat turns tender and the broth stays clear.

Swap the lima beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, potato, tomato, butter, flour, celery, parsley):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, potato, tomato, butter, flour, celery, 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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