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Keller's Malt-soup

A simple soup made with wheat flour, milk, water, and malt extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Keller's Malt-soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the flour thoroughly in the milk.

  2. Rub the soaked flour through a sieve or strainer.

Combine and serve

  1. In a separate dish, combine the water and malt extract.

  2. Dissolve the flour mixture in the malt extract solution.

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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Wheat + malttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Milk + malttop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together101 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Wheat flour
Thickens the soup as its starch is dissolved into the liquid.
Milk
Softens the flour and adds creaminess and richness to the soup.
Malt extract
Adds a sweet, toasty malt flavour to the soup.

The step that matters

Rub the soaked flour through a sieve or strainer. Soaking alone leaves lumps of flour. Pressing it through a sieve breaks up clumps so the flour disperses evenly and the soup stays smooth rather than grainy.

“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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