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Gourd Soup

A soup made from sliced gourds, onions, butter, bread crust, consommé, seasoned with salt and cayenne pepper, served with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Gourd Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the gourds and onions.

Make the soup

  1. In a stew-pan, melt the butter over low heat and add the sliced gourds and onions.

  2. Cook until tender, being careful not to burn them.

  3. Add the crust of bread and consommé, then season with salt and cayenne pepper.

  4. Boil for 10 to 15 minutes.

  5. Skim off the fat.

  6. Pass the soup through a tamis while hot.

Serve

  1. Serve with fried 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.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Gourds
Form the main body of the soup and give it its bulk and mild flavor.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma as they soften in the butter.
Butter
Carries the aromatics and adds richness as it cooks the vegetables gently.
Crust of bread
Thickens the soup slightly and gives it body.
Consommé
Supplies the liquid base and savory depth of the soup.

The step that matters

Cook the gourds and onions until tender without browning. Over low heat the vegetables soften and release their sweetness; if they scorch, bitter burnt flavors enter the soup and cannot be removed by straining.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, 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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