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SQuasH Soup

A creamy squash soup made with squash, butter, onion, spices, stock, flour, cream, and served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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SQuasH Soup

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

SQuasH Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the squash

  1. Cut the squash into 2‑inch pieces, leaving the rind on.

  2. Steam or bake for 30 minutes.

  3. Cool and rub through a sieve twice.

Make the soup base

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter.

  2. Sauté the minced onion until yellow.

  3. Add the hot water or stock, red pepper, salt, celery, cloves, and mace.

  4. Simmer for 20 minutes.

  5. Strain.

  6. Mix the flour with a little cold water until smooth. Add to the strained liquid.

  7. Simmer until smooth.

  8. Combine the smooth mixture with the squash pulp.

Finish and serve

  1. In a separate pot, heat the hot water or soft stock.

  2. Whisk in the squash mixture.

  3. Scald the cream. Beat it into the soup.

  4. Season to taste.

  5. Serve with toasted bread.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Squash
Forms the thick body and main flavour of the soup once rubbed smooth.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries the onion flavour when melted.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the soup becomes smooth and body-rich.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Scald the cream before beating it in. Scalding warms the cream so it blends in smoothly instead of cooling the soup or curdling when added to hot liquid.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, pepper, celery, clove, flour, cream. 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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