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Dessert

Macaroons for Soup

Macaroons for soup are savory dumplings made with cracker meal, nutmeg, almonds, and eggs, dropped into boiling fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Macaroons for Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the cracker meal, nutmeg, egg yolks, salt, grated almonds, and sugar together until well combined.

  2. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into boiling fat, adjusting the size to your preference.

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. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Nutmeg + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Cracker meal
Provides the bulk and body that holds the mixture together.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and add richness.
Egg whites
Beaten whites trap air, giving the mixture lightness as it cooks.
Grated almonds
Add nutty flavor and a tender texture.
Sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. Beaten egg whites hold air in a foam. Vigorous stirring deflates that foam, so the macaroons turn out dense instead of light.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (nutmeg, egg, sugar):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits less well
  4. Milletfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against nutmeg, egg, sugar. 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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