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Brown Soup

A soup made with game or poultry, rice flour, celery seed, peppercorns, butter, onion, carrot, turnip, sweet herbs, Worcester sauce, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Hamilton, Margaret · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Brown 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 ↓

Brown Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix scraps of game or poultry with 1 tablespoonful rice flour.

  2. Add 1 pint stock and 1 tablespoonful Worcester sauce.

  3. Add 1 onion, 1 carrot, and 1 turnip.

  4. Add 1 teaspoonful sweet herbs.

  5. Add 1 teaspoonful celery seed tied in a muslin.

  6. Add 6 peppercorns from a bag.

  7. Melt butter, fry onion and meat, cut small; stir in flour; add stock and other ingredients.

  8. Cook slowly until the carrot and turnip are half cooked and the meat is sufficiently tender to be rubbed through a sieve.

  9. Reheat the soup; season with salt and pepper.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

903Calories
22 gProtein
15 gFat
171 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 9 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Rice1 cup cooked (158g) white206
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Corn1/2 cup kernels (82g)77
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Celery Seed1 stalk (40g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Hamilton, Margaret. 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. See the original page.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Rice + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together933 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 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

Rice flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, slightly body-rich soup as it cooks with the meat.
Game or poultry scraps (in the method)
Provide the main meaty flavour, and their tenderness is what the soup is cooked to reach.
Butter
Fat for frying the onion and meat, building colour and savoury flavour at the start.
Onion
Fried with the meat at the start, adding sweetness and aroma to the base.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until the carrot and turnip are half cooked and the meat is sufficiently tender to be rubbed through a sieve.. Slow simmering draws flavour out of the meat and softens vegetables gradually. Boiling hard can cloud the soup and toughen the meat, and the sieve only works once it is fully tender.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, flour, celery, pepper, corn, clove, butter. 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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