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Cocoanut Soup

A coconut soup made with grated coconut, mace, cinnamon, eggs, wheatmeal, and lemon juice, simmered and served with boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By T. R. Allinson · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Cocoanut Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine grated coconut, mace, cinnamon, water, lemon juice, eggs, wheatmeal, pepper, and salt in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the coconut in the water, adding the mace, cinnamon, and seasoning.

  3. Cook gently for an hour, then strain the mixture through a sieve and return the soup to the saucepan.

Thicken and serve

  1. Make a paste of eggs, wheatmeal, and lemon juice; add it to the soup and let it boil up before serving, then simmer for 5 minutes.

  2. Serve with a little plain boiled rice.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

102Calories
7 gProtein
5 gFat
8 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 7 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

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

By T. R. Allinson. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Cinnamon + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Coconut (in the method)
Provides the main flavour and a rich, creamy body to the soup.
Eggs
Set when heated, helping to thicken the soup and bind it slightly.
Wheatmeal (in the method)
Starch in the flour thickens the liquid and gives it more body as it cooks.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the coconut flavour and balances the richness.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour that infuses the soup as it boils.
Cinnamon
Adds a sweet, warm aroma that infuses the soup during cooking.

The step that matters

Adding the egg and lemon paste. Egg proteins set when heated, so they can curdle into lumps if the paste is added unsmoothed or the soup boils too hard. Mix the paste smoothly into the soup for an even, silky thickness.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, egg, pepper, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, egg, pepper, lemon. 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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