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Soup Oatmeal

A simple soup made with oatmeal, water, celery, bay leaf, salt, optional beef extract, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,759 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Soup Oatmeal

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Combine oatmeal and water in a pot.

  2. Add chopped celery, bay leaf, and salt.

  3. Cover and boil slowly for 15 minutes.

  4. If using, add beef extract or substitute stock for water.

Finish and serve

  1. Press the mixture through a sieve.

  2. Return the liquid to the pot and add milk.

  3. Reheat and serve.

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. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Celery + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Celery + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked oatmeal
Thickens the liquid as its starches swell and soften during simmering.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy texture to the finished soup.
Celery
Contributes savory, aromatic flavor as it simmers in the broth.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Pepperfits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, milk. 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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