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Soup

Cocoa-nut Soup

A soup made from grated cocoa-nut simmered in stock, seasoned with mace, cayenne, salt, and finished with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,009 recipes. The science ↓

Cocoa-nut Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cocoa-nut

  1. Immerse the cocoa-nut in cold water.

  2. Wipe the cocoa-nut.

  3. Weigh the cocoa-nut.

Make the soup

  1. Cover the cocoa-nut with good stock.

  2. Stew gently for about 1 hour, until it breaks when touched with a fork.

  3. Drain the mixture.

  4. Pound the mixture.

  5. Rub through a fine sieve.

  6. Add sufficient stock, mace, cayenne, and salt.

  7. Stir often until it boils.

  8. Stir in the cream.

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. Mace + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes
  2. Cocoa + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together304 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Cocoa + macetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Cocoa-nut
Forms the body of the soup, softening into a thick, rich base when stewed and sieved.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Stew gently for about 1 hour. Gentle heat softens the grated cocoa-nut until it breaks under a fork without scorching or toughening. Rapid boiling can scorch the bottom of the pan and make the texture coarse.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mace, cream):

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mace, 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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